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 t