t of the thin dark like a thought half thought,
and go gliding along the shore like a sea-ghost over the dusky water,
faint, uncertain, noiseless, glimmering. It could be no other than the
Fisky! Both their lady and their friend Malcolm must be on board, they
were certain, for how could the one of them come without the other? and
doubtless the marchioness--whom they all remembered as a good-humored,
handsome girl, ready to speak to any and everybody--would immediately
deliver them from the hateful red-nosed ogre, her factor. Out at once
they all set along the shore to greet her arrival, each running
regardless of the rest, so that from the Seaton to the middle of the
Boar's Tail there was a long, straggling, broken string of hurrying
fisher-folk, men and women, old and young, followed by all the current
children, tapering to one or two toddlers, who felt themselves neglected
and wept their way along. The piper, too asthmatic to run, but not too
asthmatic to walk and play his bagpipes, delighting the heart of
Malcolm, who could not mistake the style, believed he brought up the
rear, but was mistaken; for the very last came Mrs. Findlay and Lizzy,
carrying between them their little deal kitchen-table for her ladyship
to step out of the boat upon, and Lizzy's child fast asleep on the top
of it.

The foremost ran and ran until they saw that the Fisky had chosen her
lair, and was turning her bows to the shore, when they stopped and
stood ready with greased planks and ropes to draw her up. In a few
minutes the whole population was gathered, darkening, in the June
midnight, the yellow sands between the tide and the dune. The Psyche was
well manned now with a crew of six. On she came under full sail till
within a few yards of the beach, when in one and the same moment every
sheet was let go, and she swept softly up like a summer wave, and lay
still on the shore. The butterfly was asleep. But ere she came to rest,
the instant indeed that her canvas went fluttering away, thirty strong
men had rushed into the water and laid hold of the now wingless Psyche.
In a few minutes she was high and dry.

Malcolm leaped on the sand just as the Partaness came bustling up with
her kitchen-table between her two hands like a tray. She set it down,
and across it shook hands with him violently: then caught it up again,
and deposited it firm on its four legs beneath the cutter's waist. "Noo,
my leddy," said Meg, looking up at the marchioness, "se