floodmark

Scott thus describes Holy Island and Lindisfarn: 'The tide did now its floodmark gain, And girdled in the saint's domain: For, with the flow and ebb, its style Varied from continent to isle; Dryshod, o'er sands, twice every day, The pilgrims to the shrine find way; Twice every day, the waves efface Of staves and sandalled feet the trace.

One can imagine this little scene repeating itself many a time, long after Captain Thomas Green, his mate, John Madder or Mather, and another of his crew were taken to the sands at Leith on the second Wednesday in April 1705, being April 11, and there hanged within the floodmark upon a gibbet till they were dead.

The tide did now its floodmark gain, And girdled in the saint's domain: For, with the flow and ebb, its style Varies from continent to isle; Dry-shod, o'er sands, twice every day, The pilgrims to the shrine find way; Twice every day, the waves efface Of staves and sandalled feet the trace.

Standing on its sleek table or stair-step, by the River's edge; well above floodmark; green, shaggy or fringy mountains looking down on it to rearward; in front, beyond the River, nothing visible but mile-long cream-colored rock-wall, with bushes at bottom and top, wall quarried by Elbe, as you can see.