"Tell me if you see its port."
"Yes, I see."
"Describe it—the houses, the country, the dress and look of the people—"
Mother Binning did so.
"That's not Holland—that would be Lisbon. Look at the ship again, Mother. Look at the sailors. Look at the passengers if there are any. Whom do you see?"
"Ah!" said Mother Binning. "There's a braw wrong-doer for you, sitting drinking Spanish wine!"
"Say his name."
"It's he that once, when you were a lad, you brought alive from the Kelpie's Pool."
"Thank you, Mother! That's what I wanted. Scrying! Who gives to whom—who gives back to whom? The underneath great I, I suppose. Left hand giving to right—and no brand-new news! All the same, other drifts concurring, I think that he fled by the Lisbon ship!"
Mother Binning pushed aside the pan of water and rubbed her hand across her eyes. She took up her bundle of herbs. "Hoot, Glenfernie! do ye think that's your soul's desire?"