Magwitch and Compeyson make it ashore

The salt marshes on the Ythan Estuary always remind me of Dicken's Great Expectations. My mind wanders to the day that Pip first met Abel Magwitch after he and fellow convict Compeyson had escaped from the prison hulk across the mud-flats.

"By my boy, I was giv to understand as Compeyson was out on them marshes too. Upon my soul, I half believe he escaped in his terror, to get quit of me, not knowing it was me as had got ashore. I hunted him down. I smashed his face. 'And now,' says I 'as the worst thing I can do, caring nothing for myself, I'll drag you back.' And I'd have swum off, towing him by the hair, if it had come to that, and I'd a got him aboard without the soldiers."