LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 352, 29 July 1875, Page 4

LITERATURE.

THE HAUNTED SHIPS. {Concluded.) Then the spectre ships vanish, and the drowning shriek of mortals and the rejoicing laugh of fiends arc heard, and the old hulls arc left as a memorial that the spiritual kingdom has not departed from the earth. But I maun away,|and trim my little cottage fire, and make it burn and blaze up bonnie, to warm the crickets, and my cold and crazy bones, that maun soon be laid aneath the green sod in the eerie kirkyard ' And away the old dame tottered to her cottage, secured the door on the inside, and soon the hearthflame was seen to glimmer and gleam through the key-hole and window. ' I'll tell ye what,' said the old manner, 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 mikle more than she is walling to tell of the Haunted Ships and their unhallowed mariners. She lives cannily 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 or fish, and white bread and brown. It was a clear scoff to Jock Matheson, when he called old Moll the uncannie carline of Blawwhooly ; 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 reckoned himself unsafe till he made auld Moll the present of a kirtle and a stone of cheese.' *oh, father,' said his granddaughter 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 Jennie 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 laid of Burntrout-water 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 unwordly crews as anyone could wish to hear in a winter evening. It was told me by young Benjie Macharg, one summer night, sitting on Arbigland-bank ; the lad intended a sort of love meeting ; but all that lie 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 an 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 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 luvers of Alexander's bonnie wife all ceased to love 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 Soukier up 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 candlelight. 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 an 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 toils of those unearthly workmen amazed the Laird, how inuch more was his amazement increased when a sharp shrill voice called out, ' Ho ! brother, what are you doing now ?' A voice still shriller respoiidedfromthe 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 labour. ' 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 calfskin, 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 in the fire, and proceeded in every way like a man skilful in guarding against the plots cf fairies and fiends. His wife looked on all this with wonder; but she saw something in her husband's looks that hindered her frow intruding either question or advice, and a wise woman 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 ; sac 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 spake, "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. 0 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 he said, ' I wauna take the counsel of sic a hempie as you ;' I'm your own 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 j 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 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 earthly men, and fell in love with their wives—" ' "Nay, 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 Damsonplum, will be snoorcd 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 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 while ensued, and along, 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 ad mitted 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 tiaine ; 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 lire, the sons and daughters of Sandie Macharg and his wife drink out to this very day. Bless all bold men, say I, and obedient wives!"