hree 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 a 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 lovers of Alexander's bonnie wife all ceased to love and to
sue 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 Soukitup 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 candle-light. 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 and 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 toil of these unearthly workmen amazed the
Laird, how much more was his amazement increased when a sharp shrill
voice called out, 'Ho! bro