was nerving herself might end successfully for her; she managed, unseen, to draw the charges from his pistols.  Then the courageous girl rode off through the dark night to select a favourable spot in which to await his coming.  For two or three lonely hours she waited, the thought that she was fighting for her father’s life giving her courage.  In the dim light of the early dawn she heard the sound of his horse’s hoofs from where she stood in the shadow of a clump of trees; and steeling herself for the part she was to play, and in ignorance of whether he might have found out that the charges had been withdrawn from his pistols and might have re-loaded them, she waited until he was almost abreast of her, and fired at his horse, bringing it down.  Before he could extricate himself she was upon him with drawn sword; but promising to spare his life if he would let her have the mail-bag, she seized it and darted away.  He attempted to follow to recover his charge, but she reached her horse, and rode off like the wind.  When she reached a place of safety and examined the contents of the bag, what was her joy to find that the warrant was there.  It was speedily destroyed; and during the time that elapsed before the news of the loss could be sent to London and another one made out, the friends of Sir John succeeded in obtaining his pardon.  “Cochrane’s bonny Grizzy” lived to a good old age; and “Grizzy’s clump” on the north road near the little village of Buckton keeps green the memory of her daring exploit.

“Bonny Grizzy” was a Scottish maid, though her gallant if lawless deed was performed on Northumbrian soil; but there is one Northumbrian maiden whose fame will live as long as the sea-waves beat on the wild north-east coast, and as long as men’s hearts thrill to a tale of courage and high resolve.  Grace Darling’s name still awakens in every bosom a response to all that is compassionate, courageous, and unselfish; and the thoughts of all north-country folk bold that admiration for the gentle girl which has been voiced as no other could voice it, in the magical words of Swinburne—­

  “Take, O star of all our seas, from not an alien hand,
  Homage paid of song bowed down before thy glory’s face,
  Thou the living light of all our lovely stormy strand,
  Thou the brave north-country’s very glory of glories, Grace.”

The story of her gallantry has been many times re-told, but never grows wearisome.  The memory of that stormy voyage of the Forfarshire, which ended in disaster on the Harcar rocks in the Farne group, remains in men’s minds as the dark and tragic setting which throws into bright relief the gallant action of the father and daughter who dared almost certain death to rescue their fellow-creatures in peril.  It was in September, 1838, that the ill-fated vessel left Hull for Dundee; but a leak in the boilers caused the fires to be nearly extinguished in the storm the vessel encountered.  It reached St. Abb’s