When I was a little boy, I would sit for hours by the kitchen fire, listening to my grandfather, who used to while away the long winter evenings by telling us stories about witches and warlocks, ghosts and fairies, of which he had an inexhaustible stock. A very favourite one with me was the tale of the each uisg, or the water horse, a fearful demon in the likeness of a big, black horse, who inhabited Loch-Dorch, and woe to any one who ventured near the loch after nightfall; for the each uisg was always on the watch, and would rise out of the water, seize any intruders, and drag them to the bottom, to be devoured by him at his leisure. Sometimes he would assume other shapes, and try to lure people away to the water. One Hallowe’en night there was a party of young people gathered round the fire in the house of Duncan the weaver, burning nuts and ducking for apples, when Duncan’s daughter, bonnie Catriana, proposed to go and dip her sleeve in the burn, to try if her sweetheart was true. None of her companions would go, for fear of the each uisg, and tried in vain to dissuade Catriana from her venturesome purpose, but laughing at their fears, she threw her plaid over her head, and ran off to the burn.
In a little they were startled by hearing a loud wailing shriek, and fearing some accident had happened to their favourite Catriana, rushed out of the house to look after her, but no trace could they find of the poor, wilful lassie. Her father and the lads were searching the whole night, and at the dawn of day they found her plaid at the side of the dreaded Loch-Dorch, and near it, in the clay, the mark of an unearthly hoof, which proved, beyond doubt, that she had fallen a victim to the monster water-horse.
Then there was young Allan Mac Sheumais, who, coming home in the dusk, after spending the day hunting the deer, heard a tramping sound which he soon found to proceed from the water-horse, which he could see rapidly galloping up to him. Poor Allan, though in a dreadful fright, did not lose his presence of mind, and knowing full well that ordinary shot would have no effect upon the demon, he rapidly loaded his gun with a small, crooked silver sixpence—the blessed metal from a cup of which the Saviour drank his last draught on earth—and exclaiming, “The cross be betwixt me and thee,” fired with a steady aim, while the cold sweat stood on his brow.
The each uisg gave one yelling neigh, so shrill, so dismal, and unearthly, that the cattle which had lain down to rest on the heath started up in terror; the dogs of the hamlet heard it, and, ceasing their gambols, ran cowering and trembling to the fireside; the roosted cock heard it, and essayed to crow, but could only scream. Never will those who heard that terrific cry forget it; but it had scarcely ceased ere the demon steed had sprung into the midst of Loch-Dorch, and as the water closed over him, a sound, as of a sarcastic, unearthly laugh, was heard from the middle of the loch, and then all was silent.
Yet notwithstanding all this, Lachlan Buachaille, the cow-herd, who was a wild, reckless fellow, would never believe the stories he heard about this dreadful being, and laughingly suggested that Allan had only been frightened by Rorie Mor’s gearran broken loose from his tether; and bragged that he had never seen the each uisg, although he had lived for some years near the Raven’s Peak, close to the haunted loch.
‘And would ye wish to see him?’ asked old Janet, as he sat by her fireside one evening; ‘would ye really wish to see that fearsome thing, Lachlan?’
‘May I never taste oatcake or whisky again!’ said Lachlan impetuously, ‘but I wish to see the beast, if there’s one in it, and the sooner the better.’
It was a gusty, rainy autumn night. Lachlan sat alone in his bothie, busily employed in twisting his oat straw siaman, humming to himself, and listening to the sound of the torrent as it dashed over the rocks, the pattering of the heavy rain, and the sheughs of the north-west wind, moaning as it passed along, all of which only served to increase his sense of comfort as he drew his three-legged stool nearer to the bright peat fire.
He was just thinking of retiring for the night, when he heard a gentle knocking at the door, ‘Who is there at this time of night?’ asked he, to which a feeble voice replied, ‘I am a poor old woman who lost my way this wild night; pray let me in, or I shall perish with cold and fatigue.’ Lachlan muttered anything but blessings on the old body’s head for thus disturbing him, for he had a particular objection to old women. ‘Bad luck to her; were it a young one, or even an old man, I should not care,’ he grumbled; ‘but an old hag to come sorning on me, as I was about to step into my quiet bed.’ Then raising his voice, he said, ‘Wait, wait, carlin, I’ll be with you directly, let me wind up my siaman first; the diabhul take you, have more patience, and don’t keep croaking there with your ill-omened voice;’ and, unfastening the latch, he continued, ‘There, enter now, and curses on you.’ However, with all his roughness, Lachlan was not a bad-natured fellow, and regretted his inhospitality, when he saw stepping in a poor, wretched, little, old woman, bent double with age and misery. She wore a dun cloak drawn tightly round her figure, with a kind of red hood attached to it, marked with strange characters, which quite covered her head, and shaded her face. She gave no salutation, good or bad, and as she crawled rather than walked up to the fire, it emitted a vivid spark, which hissed as it fell on the dripping clothes of the old hag; a hen on the roost crowed discordantly, and a little mouse poked its head out of a hole and squeaked loudly. The old woman, noticing this, gave a queer kind of laugh, so grating in its sound that Lachlan turned quickly round and stared at her; but she met his gaze sharply, and with a peculiarity of expression which Lachlan felt, without knowing why, to be very unpleasant.
‘Old grannie,’ said he, ‘will you take something?’