n.

"You will not ever have seen a teevil of the sea?" he asked.

"No' clearly," replied the other. "I misdoobt if a mere man could see
ane clearly and conteenue in the body. I hae sailed wi' a lad--they ca'd
him Sandy Gabart; he saw ane, shuere eneuch, an' shuere eneuch it was the
end of him. We were seeven days oot frae the Clyde--a sair wark we had
had--gaun north wi' seeds an' braws an' things for the Macleod. We had
got in ower near under the Cutchull'ns, an' had just gane about by Soa,
an' were off on a long tack, we thocht would maybe hauld as far's
Copnahow. I mind the nicht weel; a mune smoored wi' mist; a fine-gaun
breeze upon the water, but no steedy; an'--what nane o' us likit to
hear--anither wund gurlin' owerheid, amang thae fearsome, auld stane
craigs o' the Cutchull'ns. Weel, Sandy was forrit wi' the jib sheet; we
couldna see him for the mains'l, that had just begude to draw, when a'
at ance he gied a skirl. I luffed for my life, for I thocht we were over
near Soa; but na, it wasna that, it was puir Sandy Gabart's deid
skreigh, or near-hand, for he was deid in half an hour. A't he could
tell was that a sea-deil, or sea-bogle, or sea-spenster, or sic-like,
had clum up by the bowsprit, an' gi'en him ae cauld, uncanny look. An',
or the life was oot o' Sandy's body, we kent weel what the thing
betokened, and why the wund gurled in the taps o' the Cutchull'ns; for
doon it cam'--a wund do I ca' it! It was the wund o' the Lord's
anger--an' a' that nicht we focht like men dementit, and the neist that
we kenned we were ashore in Loch Uskevagh, an' the cocks were crawin' in
Benbecula."

"It will have been a merman," Rorie said.

"A merman!" screamed my uncle with immeasurable scorn. "Auld wives'
clavers! There's nae sic things as mermen."

"But what was the creature like?" I asked.

"What like was it? Gude forbid that we suld ken what like it was! It had
a kind of a heid upon it--man could say nae mair."

Then Rorie, smarting under the affront, told several tales of mermen,
mermaids, and sea-horses that had come ashore upon the islands and
attacked the crews of boats upon the sea; and my uncle, in spite of his
incredulity, listened with uneasy interest.

"Aweel, aweel," he said, "it may be sae; I may be wrang; but I find nae
word o' mermen in the Scriptures."

"And you will find nae word of Aros Roost, maybe," objected Rorie, and
his argument appeared to carry weight.

When dinner was over, my uncle ca