“And trow ye,” said the old woman, who, attracted from her hut by the drowning cries of the young fisherman, had remained an auditor of the mariner’s legend,—­“And trow ye, Mark Macmoran, that the tale of the Haunted Ships is done?  I can say no to that.  Mickle have mine ears heard; but more mine eyes have witnessed since I came to dwell in this humble home by the side of the deep sea.  I mind the night weel; it was on Hallowmas Eve; the nuts were cracked, and the apples were eaten, and spell and charm were tried at my fireside; till, wearied with diving into the dark waves of futurity, the lads and lasses fairly took to the more visible blessings of kind words, tender clasps, and gentle courtship.  Soft words in a maiden’s ear, and a kindly kiss o’ her lip were old-world matters to me, Mark Macmoran; though I mean not to say that I have been free of the folly of daunering and daffin with a youth in my day, and keeping tryst with him in dark and lonely places.  However, as I say, these times of enjoyment were passed and gone with me—­the mair’s the pity that pleasure should fly sae fast away—­and as I couldna make sport I thought I should not mar any; so out I sauntered into the fresh cold air, and sat down behind that old oak, and looked abroad on the wide sea.  I had my ain sad thoughts, ye may think, at the time:  it was in that very bay my blythe good-man perished, with seven more in his company; and on that very bank where ye see the waves leaping and foaming, I saw seven stately corses streeked, but the dearest was the eighth.  It was a woful sight to me, a widow, with four bonnie boys, with nought to support them but these twa hands, and God’s blessing, and a cow’s grass.  I have never liked to live out of sight of this bay since that time; and mony’s the moonlight night I sit looking on these watery mountains and these waste shores; it does my heart good, whatever it may do to my head.  So ye see it was Hallowmas Night, and looking on sea and land sat I; and my heart wandering to other thoughts soon made me forget my youthful company at hame.  It might be near the howe hour of the night.  The tide was making, and its singing brought strange old-world stories with it, and I thought on the dangers that sailors endure, the fates they meet with, and the fearful forms they see.  My own blythe goodman had seen sights that made him grave enough at times, though he aye tried to laugh them away.

“Aweel, atween that very rock aneath us and the coming tide, I saw, or thought I saw—­for the tale is so dreamlike that the whole might pass for a vision of the night,—­I saw the form of a man; his plaid was grey, his face was grey; and his hair, which hung low down till it nearly came to the middle of his back, was as white as the white sea-foam.  He began to howk and dig under the bank; an’ God be near me, thought I, this maun be the unblessed spirit of auld Adam Gowdgowpin the miser, who is doomed to dig for shipwrecked treasure, and count how many