PART IV.
Lad and Lassie
[Illustration]
THE INCHCAPE ROCK.
The man is wrecked and his ship is sunken before he ever steps on board
or sees the water if his heart is hard and his estimate of human beings
low. "The Inchcape Rock" is a thrust at hard-heartedness. "What is the
use of life?" To bear one another's burdens, to develop a genius for
pulling people through hard places--that's the use of life. It is the
last resort of a mean mind to crack jokes that wreck innocent voyagers
on life's sea. (1774-1843.)
No stir in the air, no stir in the sea,
The ship was still as she could be;
Her sails from heaven received no motion;
Her keel was steady in the ocean.
Without either sign or sound of their shock,
The waves flowed over the Inchcape Rock;
So little they rose, so little they fell,
They did not move the Inchcape Bell.
The Abbot of Aberbrothok
Had placed that Bell on the Inchcape Rock;
On a buoy in the storm it floated and swung,
And over the waves its warning rung.
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