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"I'll tell ye what," said the old mariner, in a subdued tone, and with
a shrewd and suspicious glance of his eye after the old sibyl, "it's
a word that may not very well be uttered, but there are many mistakes
made in evening stories if old Moll Moray there, where she lives, knows
not mickle more than she is willing to tell of the Haunted Ships and
their unhallowed mariners. She lives cannilie and quietly; no one knows
how she is fed or supported; but her dress is aye whole, her cottage
ever smokes, and her table lacks neither of wine, white and red, nor
of fowl and fish, and white bread and brown. It was a dear scoff to
Jock Matheson, when he called old Moll the uncannie carline of
Blawhooly: his boat ran round and round in the centre of the
Solway,--everybody said it was enchanted,--and down it went head
foremost: and had nae Jock been a swimmer equal to a sheldrake, he would
have fed the fish; but I'll warrant it sobered the lad's speech; and
he never reckoned himself safe till he made auld Moll the present of
a new kirtle and a stone of cheese."

"O father," said his grand-daughter Barbara, "ye surely wrong poor old
Mary Moray; what use could it be to an old woman like her, who has no
wrongs to redress, no malice to work out against mankind, and nothing
to seek of enjoyment save a cannie hour and a quiet grave,--what use
could the fellowship of fiends, and the communion of evil spirits, be
to her? I know Jenny Primrose puts rowan-tree above the door-head when
she sees old Mary coming; I know the good wife of Kittlenaket wears
rowan-berry leaves in the headband of her blue kirtle, and all for the
sake of averting the unsonsie glance of Mary's right ee; and I know
that the auld laird of Burntroutwater drives his seven cows to their
pasture with a wand of witch-tree, to keep Mary from milking them. But
what has all that to do with haunted shallops, visionary mariners, and
bottomless boats? I have heard myself as pleasant a tale about the
Haunted Ships and their unworldly crews, as any one would wish to hear
in a winter evening. It was told me by young Benjie Macharg, one summer
night, sitting on Arbiglandbank: the lad intended a sort of love
meeting; but all that he could talk of was about smearing sheep and
shearing sheep, and of the wife which the Norway elves of the Haunted
Ships made for his uncle Sandie Macharg. And I shall tell ye the tale
as the honest lad told it to me.

"Alexander Macharg, besides being the laird of three acres of peatmoss,
two kale gardens, and the owner of seven good milch cows, a pair of
horses, and six pet sheep, was the husband of one of the handsomest
women in seven parishes. Many a lad sighed the day he was brided; and
a Nithsdale laird and two Annandale moorland farmers drank themselves
to their last linen, as well as their last shilling, through sorrow
for her loss. But married was the dame; and home she was carried, to
bear rule over her home and her husband, as an honest woman should.
Now ye maun ken that though the flesh and blood lovers of Alexander's
bonnie wife all ceased to love and to sue her after she became another's,
there were certain admirers who did not consider their claim at all
abated, or their hopes lessened, by the kirk's famous obstacle of
matrimony. Ye have heard how the devout minister of Tinwald had a fair
son carried away, and bedded against his liking to an unchristened
bride, whom the elves and the fairies provided; ye have heard how the
bonnie bride of the drunken laird of Soukitup was stolen by the fairies
out at the back-window of the bridal chamber, the time the bridegroom
was groping his way to the chamber-door; and ye have heard-- But why
need I multiply cases? such things in the ancient days were as common
as candle-light. So ye'll no hinder certain water-elves and
sea-fairies, who sometimes keep festival and summer mirth in these old
haunted hulks, from falling in love with the weel-faured wife of Laird
Macharg; and to their plots and contrivances they went how they might
accomplish to sunder man and wife; and sundering such a man and such
a wife was like sundering the green leaf from the summer, or the
fragrance from the flower.

"So it fell on a time that Laird Macharg took his halve-net on his back,
and his steel spear in his hand, and down to Blawhooly Bay gaed he,
and into the water he went right between the two haunted hulks, and
placing his net awaited the coming of the tide. The night, ye maun ken,
was mirk, and the wind lowne, and the singing of the increasing waters
among the shells and the pebbles was heard for sundry miles. All at
once lights began to glance and twinkle on board the two Haunted Ships
from every hole and seam, and presently the sound as of a hatchet
employed in squaring timber echoed far and wide. But if the toil of
these unearthly workmen amazed the Laird, how much more was his
amazement increased when a sharp shrill voice called out, 'Ho! brother,
what are you doing now?' A voice still shriller responded from the
other haunted ship, 'I'm making a wife to Sandie Macharg!' and a loud
quavering laugh running from ship to ship, and from bank to bank, told
the joy they expected from their labor.

"Now the Laird, besides being a devout and a God-fearing man, was shrewd
and bold; and in plot, and contrivance, and skill in conducting his
designs, was fairly an overmatch for any dozen land-elves; but the
water-elves are far more subtle; besides, their haunts and their
dwellings being in the great deep, pursuit and detection is hopeless
if they succeed in carrying their prey to the waves. But ye shall hear.
Home flew the Laird, collected his family around the hearth, spoke of
the signs and the sins of the times, and talked of mortification and
prayer for averting calamity; and finally, taking his father's Bible,
brass clasps, black print, and covered with calf-skin, from the shelf,
he proceeded without let or stint to perform domestic worship. I should
have told ye that he bolted and locked the door, shut up all inlet to
the house, threw salt into the fire, and proceeded in every way like
a man skilful in guarding against the plots of fairies and fiends. His
wife looked on all this with wonder; but she saw something in her
husband's looks that hindered her from intruding either question or
advice, and a wise woman was she.

"Near the mid-hour of the night the rush of a horse's feet was heard,
and the sound of a rider leaping from its back, and a heavy knock came
to the door, accompanied by a voice saying, 'The cummer drink's hot,
and the knave bairn is expected at Laird Laurie's to-night; sae mount,
goodwife, and come.'

"'Preserve me!' said the wife of Sandie Macharg; 'that's news indeed!
who could have thought it? the Laird has been heirless for seventeen
years! Now, Sandie, my man, fetch me my skirt and hood.'

"But he laid his arm round his wife's neck, and said, 'If all the lairds
in Galloway go heirless, over this door threshold shall you not stir
to-night; and I have said, and I have sworn it: seek not to know why
or wherefore; but, Lord, send us thy blessed mornlight.' The wife
looked for a moment in her husband's eyes, and desisted from further
entreaty.

"'But let us send a civil message to the gossips, Sandie; and hadnae
ye better say I am sair laid with a sudden sickness? though it's
sinful-like to send the poor messenger a mile agate with a lie in his
mouth without a glass of brandy.'

"'To such a messenger, and to those who sent him, no apology is needed,'
said the austere Laird, 'so let him depart.' And the clatter of a
horse's hoofs was heard, and the muttered imprecations of its rider
on the churlish treatment he had experienced.

"'Now, Sandie, my lad,' said his wife, laying an arm particularly white
and round about his neck as she spoke, 'are you not a queer man and
a stern? I have been your wedded wife now these three years; and,
beside my dower, have brought you three as bonnie bairns as ever smiled
aneath a summer sun. O man, you a douce man, and fitter to be an elder
than even Willie Greer himself, I have the minister's ain word for't,
to put on these hard-hearted looks, and gang waving your arms that way,
as if ye said, "I winna take the counsel of sic a hempie as you"; I'm
your ain leal wife, and will and maun have an explanation.'

"To all this Sandie Macharg replied, 'It is written, "Wives, obey your
husbands"; but we have been stayed in our devotion, so let us pray.'
And down he knelt: his wife knelt also, for she was as devout as bonnie;
and beside them knelt their household, and all lights were extinguished.

"'Now this beats a',' muttered his wife to herself; 'however, I shall
be obedient for a time; but if I dinna ken what all this is for before
the morn by sunket-time, my tongue is nae langer a tongue, nor my hands
worth wearing.'

"The voice of her husband in prayer interrupted this mental soliloquy;
and ardently did he beseech to be preserved from the wiles of the fiends,
and the snares of Satan; 'from witches, ghosts, goblins, elves, fairies,
spunkies, and water-kelpies; from the spectre shallop of Solway; from
spirits visible and invisible; from the Haunted Ships and their
unearthly tenants; from maritime spirits that plotted against godly
men, and fell in love with their wives--'

"'Nay, but His presence be near us!' said his wife in a low tone of
dismay. 'God guide my gudeman's wits: I never heard such a prayer from
human lips before. But, Sandie, my man, Lord's sake, rise: what fearful
light is this?--barn and byre and stable maun be in a blaze; and Hawkie
and Hurley,--Doddie, and Cherrie, and Damson-plum, will be smoored
with reek and scorched with flame.'

"And a flood of light, but not so gross as a common fire, which ascended
to heaven and filled all the court before the house, amply justified
the good wife's suspicions. But to the terrors of fire, Sandie was as
immovable as he was to the imaginary groans of the barren wife of Laird
Laurie; and he held his wife, and threatened the weight of his right
hand--and it was a heavy one--to all who ventured abroad, or even
unbolted the door. The neighing and prancing of horses, and the
bellowing of cows, augmented the horrors of the night; and to anyone
who only heard the din, it seemed that the whole onstead was in a blaze,
and horses and cattle perishing in the flame. All wiles, common or
extraordinary, were put in practice to entice or force the honest
farmer and his wife to open the door; and when the like success attended
every new stratagem, silence for a little while ensued, and a long,
loud, and shrilling laugh wound up the dramatic efforts of the night.
In the morning, when Laird Macharg went to the door, he found standing
against one of the pilasters a piece of black ship oak, rudely fashioned
into something like human form, and which skilful people declared would
have been clothed with seeming flesh and blood, and palmed upon him
by elfin adroitness for his wife, had he admitted his visitants. A synod
of wise men and women sat upon the woman of timber, and she was finally
ordered to be devoured by fire, and that in the open air. A fire was
soon made, and into it the elfin sculpture was tossed from the prongs
of two pairs of pitchforks. The blaze that arose was awful to behold;
and hissings, and burstings, and loud cracklings, and strange noises,
were heard in the midst of the flame; and when the whole sank into ashes,
a drinking-cup of some precious metal was found; and this cup,
fashioned no doubt by elfin skill, but rendered harmless by the
purification with fire, the sons and daughters of Sandie Macharg and
his wife drink out of to this very day. Bless all bold men, say I, and
obedient wives!"

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

A RAFT THAT NO MAN MADE.

BY ROBERT T.S. LOWELL.

I am a soldier: but my tale, this time, is not of war.

The man of whom the Muse talked to the blind bard of old had grown wise
in wayfaring. He had seen such men and cities as the sun shines on,
and the great wonders of land and sea; and he had visited the farther
countries, whose indwellers, having been once at home in the green
fields and under the sky and roofs of the cheery earth, were now gone
forth and forward into a dim and shadowed land, from which they found
no backward path to these old haunts, and their old loves:--

[Greek: Eeri kai nephelei kekalummenoi: oude pot' autous
Helios phaethon kataderketai aktinessin.]
_Od_. XI.

At the Charter-House I learned the story of the King of Ithaca, and
read it for something better than a task; and since, though I have never
seen so many cities as the much-wandering man, nor grown so wise, yet
have heard and seen and remembered, for myself, words and things from
crowded streets and fairs and shows and wave-washed quays and murmurous
market-places, in many lands; and for his [Greek: Kimmerion andron
demos],--his people wrapt in cloud and vapor, whom "no glad sun finds
with his beams,"--have been borne along a perilous path through thick
mists, among the crashing ice of the Upper Atlantic, as well as
sweltered upon a Southern sea, and have learned something of men and
something of God.

I was in Newfoundland, a lieutenant of Royal Engineers, in Major Gore's
time, and went about a good deal among the people, in surveying for
Government. One of my old friends there was Skipper Benjie Westham,
of Brigus, a shortish, stout, bald man, with a cheerful, honest face
and a kind voice; and he, mending a caplin-seine one day, told me this
story, which I will try to tell after him.

We were upon the high ground, beyond where the church stands now, and
Prudence, the fisherman's daughter, and Ralph Barrows, her husband,
were with Skipper Benjie when he began; and I had an hour by the watch
to spend. The neighborhood, all about, was still; the only men who were
in sight were so far off that we heard nothing from them; no wind was
stirring near us, and a slow sail could be seen outside. Everything
was right for listening and telling.

"I can tell 'ee what I sid[1] myself, Sir," said Skipper Benjie. "It
is n' like a story that's put down in books: it's on'y like what we
planters[2] tells of a winter's night or sech: but it's _feelun_, mubbe,
an' 'ee won't expect much off a man as could n' never read,--not so
much as Bible or Prayer-Book, even."

[Footnote 1: Saw.]

[Footnote 2: Fishermen.]

Skipper Benjie looked just like what he was thought: a true-hearted,
healthy man, a good fisherman and a good seaman. There was no need of
any one's saying it. So I only waited till he went on speaking.

"'T was one time I goed to th' Ice, Sir. I never goed but once, an'
't was a'most the first v'yage ever was, ef 't was n' the _very_ first;
an' 't was the last for me, an' worse agen for the rest-part o' that
crew, that never goed no more! 'T was tarrible sad douns wi' they!"

This preface was accompanied by some preliminary handling of the
caplin-seine, also, to find out the broken places and get them about
him. Ralph and Prudence deftly helped him. Then, making his story wait,
after this opening, he took one hole to begin at in mending, chose his
seat, and drew the seine up to his knee. At the same time I got nearer
to the fellowship of the family by persuading the planter (who yielded
with a pleasant smile) to let me try my hand at the netting. Prudence
quietly took to herself a share of the work, and Ralph alone was
unbusied.

"They calls th' Ice a wicked place,--Sundays an' weekin days all alike;
an' to my seemun it's a cruel, bloody place, jes' so well,--but not
all thinks alike, surely.--Rafe, lad, mubbe 'ee 'd ruther go down
cove-ways, an' overhaul the punt a bit."

Ralph, who perhaps had stood waiting for the very dismissal that he
now got, assented and left us three. Prudence, to be sure, looked after
him as if she would a good deal rather go with him than stay; but she
stayed, nevertheless, and worked at the seine. I interpreted to myself
Skipper Benjie's sending away of one of his hearers by supposing that
his son-in-law had often heard his tales; but the planter explained
himself:--

"'Ee sees, Sir, I knocked off goun to th' Ice becase 't was sech a
tarrible cruel place, to my seemun. They swiles[3] be so knowun
like,--as knowun as a dog, in a manner, an' lovun to their own, like
Christens, a'most, more than bastes; an' they'm got red blood, for all
they lives most-partly in water; an' then I found 'em so friendly, when
I was wantun friends badly. But I s'pose the swile-fishery's needful;
an' I knows, in course, that even Christens' blood's got to be taken
sometimes, when it's bad blood, an' I would n' be childish about they
things: on'y--ef it's me--when I can live by fishun, I don' want to
go an' club an' shoot an' cut an' slash among poor harmless things that
'ould never harm man or 'oman, an' 'ould cry great tears down for
pity-sake, an' got a sound like a Christen: I 'ould n' like to go
a-swilun for gain,--not after beun among 'em, way I was, anyways."

[Footnote 3: Seals.]

This apology made it plain that Skipper Benjie was large-hearted enough,
or indulgent enough, not to seek to strain others, even his own family,
up to his own way in everything; and it might easily be thought that
the young fisherman had different feelings about sealing from those
that the planter's story was meant to bring out. All being ready, he
began his tale again:--

"I shipped wi' Skipper Isra'l Gooden, from Carbonear; the schooner was
the Baccaloue, wi' forty men, all told. 'T was of a Sunday morn'n 'e
'ould sail, twel'th day o' March, wi' another schooner in company,--the
Sparrow. There was a many of us was n' too good, but we thowt wrong
of 'e's takun the Lord's Day to 'e'sself. Wull, Sir, afore I comed 'ome,
I was in a great desert country, an' floated on sea wi' a monstrous
great raft that no man never made, creakun an' crashun an' groanun an'
tumblun an' wastun an' goun to pieces, an' no man on her but me, an'
full o' livun things,--dreadful!

"About a five hours out, 't was, we first sid the blink,[4] an' comed
up wi' th' Ice about off Cape Bonavis'. We fell in wi' it south, an'
worked up nothe along: but we did n' see swiles for two or three days
yet; on'y we was workun along; pokun the cakes of ice away, an' haulun
through wi' main strength sometimes, holdun on wi' bights o' ropes out
o' the bow; an' more times, agen, in clear water: sometimes mist all
round us, 'ee could n' see the ship's len'th, sca'ce; an' more times
snow, jes' so thick; an' then a gale o' wind, mubbe, would a'most blow
all the spars out of her, seemunly.

[Footnote 4: A dull glare on the horizon, from the immense masses of
ice.]

"We kep' sight o' th' other schooner, most-partly; an' when we did n'
keep it, we'd get it agen. So one night 't was a beautiful moonlight
night: I think I never sid a moon so bright as that moon was; an' such
lovely sights a body 'ould n' think could be! Little islands, an'
bigger, agen, there was, on every hand, shinun so bright, wi' great,
awful-lookun shadows! an' then the sea all black, between! They did
look so beautiful as ef a body could go an' bide on 'em, in a manner;
an' the sky was jes' so blue, an' the stars all shinun out, an' the
moon all so bright! I never looked upon the like. An' so I stood in
the bows; an' I don' know ef I thowt o' God first, but I was thinkun
o' my girl that I was troth-plight wi' then, an' a many things, when
all of a sudden we comed upon the hardest ice we'd a-had; an' into it;
an' then, wi' pokun an' haulun, workun along. An' there was a cry goed
up,--like the cry of a babby, 't was, an' I thowt mubbe 't was a somethun
had got upon one o' they islands; but I said, agen, 'How could it?'
an' one John Harris said 'e thowt 't was a bird. Then another man (Moffis
'e's name was) started off wi' what they calls a gaff ('t is somethun
like a short boat-hook), over the bows, an' run; an' we sid un strike,
an' strike, an' we hard it go wump! wump! an' the cry goun up so tarrible
feelun, seemed as ef 'e was murderun some poor wild Inden child 'e 'd
a-found (on'y mubbe 'e would n' do so bad as that: but there 've a-been
tarrible bloody, cruel work wi' Indens in my time), an' then 'e comed
back wi' a white-coat[5] over 'e's shoulder; an' the poor thing was
n' dead, but cried an' soughed like any poor little babby."

[Footnote 5: A young seal.]

The young wife was very restless at this point, and, though she did
not look up, I saw her tears. The stout fisherman smoothed out the net
a little upon his knee, and drew it in closer, and heaved a great sigh:
he did not look at his hearers.

"When 'e throwed it down, it walloped, an' cried, an' soughed,--an'
its poor eyes blinded wi' blood! ('Ee sees, Sir," said the planter,
by way of excusing his tenderness, "they swiles were friends to I,
after.) Dear, O dear! I could n' stand it; for 'e _might_ ha' killed
un; an' so 'e goes for a quart o' rum, for fetchun first swile, an'
I went an' put the poor thing out o' pain. I did n' want to look at
they beautiful islands no more, somehow. Bumby it comed on thick, an'
then snow.

"Nex' day swiles bawlun[6] every way, poor things! (I knowed their
voice, now,) but 't was blowun a gale o' wind, an' we under bare poles,
an' snow comun agen, so fast as ever it could come: but out the men
'ould go, all mad like, an' my watch goed, an' so I mus' go. (I did n'
think what I was goun to!) The skipper never said no; but to keep near
the schooner, an' fetch in first we could, close by; an' keep near
the schooner.

[Footnote 6: Technical word for the crying of the seals.]

"So we got abroad, an' the men that was wi' me jes' began to knock right
an' left: 't was heartless to see an' hear it. They laved two old uns
an' a young whelp to me, as they runned by. The mother did cry like
a Christen, in a manner, an' the big tears 'ould run down, an' they
'ould both be so brave for the poor whelp that 'ould cuddle up an' cry;
an' the mother looked this way an' that way, wi' big, pooty, black eyes,
to see what was the manun of it, when they'd never doned any harm in
God's world that 'E made, an' would n', even ef you killed 'em: on'y
the poor mother baste ketched my gaff, that I was goun to strike wi',
betwixt her teeth, an' I could n' get it away. 'T was n' like fishun!
(I was weak-hearted like: I s'pose 't was wi' what was comun that I
did n' know.) Then comed a hail, all of a sudden, from the schooner
(we had n' been gone more 'n a five minutes, ef 't was so much,--no,
not more 'n a three); but I was glad to hear it come then, however:
an' so every man ran, one afore t' other. There the schooner was, tearun
through all, an' we runnun for dear life. I falled among the slob,[7]
and got out agen. 'T was another man pushun agen me doned it. I could n'
'elp myself from goun in, an' when I got out I was astarn of all, an'
there was the schooner carryun on, right through to clear water! So,
hold of a bight o' line, or anything! an' they swung up in over bows
an' sides! an' swash! she struck the water, an' was out o' sight
in a minute, an' the snow drivun as ef 't would bury her, an' a man
laved behind on a pan of ice, an' the great black say two fathom ahead,
an' the storm-wind blowun 'im into it!"

[Footnote 7: Broken ice, between large cakes, or against the shore.]

The planter stopped speaking. We had all gone along so with the story,
that the stout seafarer, as he wrought the whole scene up about us,
seemed instinctively to lean back and brace his feet against the ground,
and clutch his net. The young woman looked up, this time; and the cold
snow-blast seemed to howl through that still summer's noon, and the
terrific ice-fields and hills to be crashing against the solid earth
that we sat upon, and all things round changed to the far-off stormy
ocean and boundless frozen wastes.

The planter began to speak again:--

"So I falled right down upon th' ice, sayun, 'Lard, help me! Lard, help
me!' an' crawlun away, wi' the snow in my face (I was afeard, a'most,
to stand), 'Lard, help me! Lard, help me!'

"'T was n' all hard ice, but many places lolly;[8] an' once I goed right
down wi' my hand-wristes an' my armes in cold water, part-ways to the
bottom o' th' ocean; and a'most head-first into un, as I'd a-been, in
wi' my legs afore: but, thanks be to God! 'E helped me out of un, but
colder an' wetter agen.

[Footnote 8: Snow in water, not yet frozen, but looking like the white
ice.]

"In course I wanted to folly the schooner; so I runned up along, a
little ways from the edge, an' then I runned down along: but 't was all
great black ocean outside, an' she gone miles an' miles away; an' by two
hours' time, even ef she'd come to, itself, an' all clear weather, I
could n' never see her; an' ef she could come back, she could n' never
find me, more 'n I could find any one o' they flakes o' snow. The
schooner was gone, an' I was laved out o' the world!

"Bumby, when I got on the big field agen, I stood up on my feet, an'
I sid that was my ship! She had n' e'er a sail, an' she had n' e'er
a spar, an' she had n' e'er a compass, an' she had n' e'er a helm, an'
she had n' no hold, an' she had n' no cabin. I could n' sail her, nor
I could n' steer her, nor I could n' anchor her, nor bring her to, but
she would go, wind or calm, an' she'd never come to port, but out in
th' ocean she'd go to pieces! I sid 't was so, an' I must take it, an'
do my best wi' it. 'T was jest a great, white, frozen raft, driftun
bodily away, wi' storm blowun over, an' current runnun under, an' snow
comun down so thick, an' a poor Christen laved all alone wi' it. 'T
would drift as long as anything was of it, an' 't was n' likely there'd
be any life in the poor man by time th' ice goed to nawthun; an' the
swiles 'ould swim back agen up to the Nothe!

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