ning the swiftest ship, they
approached the dangerous quicksands and headland of Borranpoint.
On the deck of the foremost ship not a living soul was seen, or
shape, unless something in darkness and form resembling a human
shadow could be called a shape, which flitted from extremity to
extremity of the ship, with the appearance of trimming the sails,
and directing the vessel's course. But the decks of its companion
were crowded with human shapes: the captain, and mate, and sailor,
and cabin-boy, all seemed there; and from them the sound of mirth
and minstrelsy echoed over land and water. The coast which they
skirted along was one of extreme danger; and the reapers shouted
to warn them to beware of sandbank and rock; but of this friendly
counsel no notice was taken, except that a large and famished dog,
which sat on the prow, answered every shout with a long, loud, and
melancholy howl. The deep sandbank of Carsethorn was expected to
arrest the career of these desperate navigators; but they passed,
with the celerity of waterfowl, over an obstruction which had wrecked
many pretty ships.

"Old men shook their heads and departed, saying, 'We have seen
the fiend sailing in a bottomless ship; let us go home and pray':
but one young and wilful man said, 'Fiend! I'll warrant it's nae
fiend, but douce Janet Withershins, the witch, holding a carouse
with some of her Cumberland cummers, and mickle red wine will be
spilt atween them. Dod I would gladly have a toothfu'! I'll warrant
it's nane o' your cauld, sour slae-water, like a bottle of Bailie
Skrinkie's port, but right drap-o'-my-heart's-blood stuff, that
would waken a body out of their last linen. I wonder where the
cummers will anchor their craft?'--'And I'll vow,' said another
rustic, 'the wine they quaff is none of your visionary drink, such
as a drouthie body has dished out to his lips in a dream; nor is
it shadowy and unsubstantial, like the vessels they sail in, which
are made out of a cockleshell or a cast-off slipper, or the paring
of a seaman's right thumb-nail. I once got a hansel out of a witch's
quaigh myself,--auld Marion Mathers, of Dustiefoot, whom they tried
to bury in the old kirkyard of Dunscore, but the cummer raise as
fast as they laid her down, and naewhere else would she lie but
in the bonnie green kirkyard of Kier, among douce and sponsible
fowk. So I'll vow that the wine of a witch's cup is as fell liquor
as ever did a kindly turn to a poor man's heart;