"'Fish,' quo' Logan, trembling a wee.
"'Dog! dost thou take me for a fisher-loon?' asked the Knicht o' Balwearie, wi' a terrible frown.
"'No,' said Logan, growing desperate; 'but I tak ye for a mischevious auld warlock, that will ruin a' the fisher-touns o' Fife, by scaring the herrings frae every firth and bay; and I've come to beg as a boon that ye will tak the spell off the water, so that the herring draves may again come back to Crail and St. Monan's.'
"'Sayst thou that I have layed a spell upon the water?' Balwearie, furiously.
"'I do—ever since the night when Mortimer's corpse was lost.'
"'Then I tell thee thou art a presumptuous liar, whom I shall yet see hanging in hell by the tongue!' cried the warlock, rising, while the cat flattened its ears, erected its back, and spat again; the owl croaked, whistled, and ruffled its feathers, and the blue star on the tapestry flashed wi' sparks o' fire; but Logan never flinched, for he remembered that his gudewife, and the gudewives o' many, were starving at hame.
"'Thou hast a son?' asked the warlock.
"'The last, Sir Michael, that you and the storm have left me—alake! alake!'
"'Carle Logan, thou hast dared to do what never mortal man has done before; thou hast bearded Michael Scott under his own roof-tree in the Castle of Balwearie, and it is but fair that such insolent courage should have its reward. To-morrow, at midnight, commences the Feast of St. Adrian, the martyr of the May, launch then your boat alone, and cast your line in Mortimer's Deep, and thou wilt see what will happen then. Bid your son, at sunrise, drop his nets off the Cave of St. Monan, and he will have in it such a strange haul as never fisherman, since the days of the blessed St. Peter, brought out of the great deep before!'
"On this the cat purred, the owl whistled, the star flashed fire, and wi' a surly laugh the warlock received the thanks o' auld Logan, who was right glad when he found himsel clear o' the great Castle o' Balwearie, and hurrying alang the bright green links o' Kirkcaldy, when the summer sun was setting behind the Lowmonds o' Fife.