Page:Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry - 1887.djvu/250

246 Od! if I thought living soul would ever make the start I gied an upcast to me, I'll drill his breast-bane wi' my dirk like a turnip lantern.'

"My father mollified the wrath of this maritime desperado, by assuring him he beheld the light go from the sea to the cottage, and that he shook with terror, for it seemed no common light. 'Ou God! then,' said hopeful Robin, 'since it was one o' our ain cannie sea apparitions, I care less about it. I took it for some landward sprite! and now I think on't, where were my een? Did it no stand amang its ain light, with its long hanks of hair dripping and drenched; with a casket of gold in ae hand, and the other guarding its throat? I'll be bound it's the ghost o' some sonsie lass that has had her neck nipped for her gold; and had she stayed till I emptied the bicker o' brandy, I would have ask'd a cannie question or twae.' Willie Weethause had now fairly overcome his consternation, and began to feel all his love for the gallant trade, as his comrade called it, return. 'The tide serves, lads! the tide serves: let us slip our drap o' brandy into the bit bonnie boat, and tottle away amang the sweet starlight as far as the Kingholm or the town quarry—ye ken we have to meet Bailie Gardevine, and Laird Soukaway o' Ladlemouth.' They returned, not without hesitation and fear, to the old cottage; carried their brandy to the boat; and, as my father and I went home, we heard the dipping of their oars in the Nith, along the banks of which they sold their liquor, and told their tale of fear, magnifying its horror at every step, and introducing abundance of variations.

"The story of 'The Ghost with the Golden Casket' flew over the country-side with all its variations, and with many comments: some said they saw her, and some thought they saw her; and those who had the hardihood to keep watch on the beach at midnight, had their tales to tell of terrible lights and strange visions. With one who delighted in the marvellous, the spectre was decked in attributes that made the circle of auditors tighten round the hearth; while others, who allowed to a ghost only a certain quantity of thin air to clothe itself in, reduced it in their description to a very unpoetic shadow, or a kind of better sort of will-o'-the-wisp, that could for its own amusement counterfeit the human shape. There were many who, like my father, beheld the singular illumination appear at midnight on the