We were all somewhat staggered by this outburst; and the speaker himself, after that last hoarse apostrophe, appeared to sink gloomily into his own thoughts. But Rorie, who was greedy of superstitious lore, recalled him to the subject by a question.
“You will not ever have seen a teevil of the sea?” he asked.
“No’ clearly,” replied the other. “I misdoobt if a mere man could see ane clearly and conteenue in the body. I hae sailed wi’ a lad—they ca’d him Sandy Gabart; he saw ane, shüre eneuch, an’ shüre eneuch it was the end of him. We were seeven days oot frae the Clyde—a sair wark we had had—gaun north wi’ seeds an’ braws an’ things for the Macleod. We had got in ower near under the Cutchull’ns, an’ had just gane about by Soa, an’ were off on a long tack, we thocht would maybe hauld as far’s Copnahow. I mind the nicht weel; a mune smoored wi’ mist; a fine-gaun breeze upon the water, but no steedy; an’—what nane o’ us likit to hear—anither wund gurlin’ owerheid, amang thae fearsome, auld stane craigs o’ the Cutchull’ns. Weel, Sandy was forrit wi’ the jib sheet; we couldna see him for the mains’l, that had just begude to draw, when a’ at ance he gied a skirl. I luffed for my life, for I thocht we were over near Soa; but na, it wasna that, it was puir Sandy Gabart’s deid skreigh, or near-hand, for he was deid in half an hour. A’t he could tell was that a sea-deil, or sea-bogle, or sea-spenster, or sic-like, had clum up by the bowsprit, an’ gi’en him ae cauld, uncanny look. An’, or the life was oot o’ Sandy’s body, we kent weel what the thing betokened, and why the wund gurled in the taps o’ the Cutchull’ns; for doon it cam’—a wund do I ca’ it! it was the wund o’ the Lord’s anger—an’ a’ that nicht we focht like men dementit, and the neist that we kenned we were ashore in Loch Uskevagh, an’ the cocks were crawin’ in Benbecula.”
“It will have been a merman,” Rorie said.
“A merman!” screamed my uncle with immeasurable scorn. “Auld wives’ clavers! There’s nae sic things as mermen.”
“But what was the creature like?” I asked.
“What like was it? Gude forbid that we suld ken what like it was! It had a kind of a heid upon it—man could say nae mair.”
Then Rorie, smarting under the affront, told several tales of mermen, mermaids, and sea-horses that had come ashore upon the islands and attacked the crews of boats upon the sea; and my uncle, in spite of his incredulity, listened with uneasy interest.
“Aweel, aweel,” he said, “it may be sae; I may be wrang; but I find nae word o’ mermen in the Scriptures.”
“And you will find nae word of Aros Roost, maybe,” objected Rorie, and his argument appeared to carry weight.