Robert Stevenson

My father died of a fever in the West Indies when I was but two, that was in 1774 and mother and I were living in Glasgow. A short while later she married a wealthy man named James Hogg, but I don't remember him and mother never talked about him. I don't know whether he died or they were divorced, rather the latter I think. Anyway, mother managed to provide for our welfare after a fashion and with a lot of church going which always gave her strength. She managed well enough to enroll me in the Royal High School, hoping that I would eventually become a minister in the Church of Scotland.

I bent and scooped a handful of sea water from a crevice. It was most foul tasting, but it did restore moisture to my mouth. I rose to speak and tell the men of the only plan that I had been able to formulate when someone (I think it was the smith's assistant, Mac Leash), called out, "A BOAT, BOAT!" I turned and sure enough t'was either a mirage or a miracle. I could discern a large boat making her way through the haze toward us. The timely visitor was the Bell Rock pilot, James Spink, who had come to deliver letters.