The young fishermen having concluded their song, my companion proceeded.
“The lightning still flashed vivid and fast, and the storm raged with unabated fury; for, between the ship and the shore, the sea broke in frightful undulation, and leaped on the greensward several fathoms deep abreast. My father, mounted on one horse, and holding another in his hand, stood prepared to give all the aid that a brave man could to the unhappy mariners; but neither horse nor man could endure the onset of that tremendous surge. The bark bore for a time the fury of the element; but a strong eastern wind came suddenly upon her, and crushing her between the wave and the freestone bank, drove her from the entrance of my father’s little bay towards the dwelling of Gibbie Gyrape, and the thick forest intervening, she was out of sight in a moment. My father saw, for the last time, the lady and her husband looking shoreward from the side of the vessel, as she drifted along; and as he galloped round the head of the forest, he heard for the last time the outcry of some, and the wail and intercession of others. When he came before the fisherman’s house, a fearful sight presented itself: the ship, dashed to atoms, covered the shore with its wreck, and with the bodies of the mariners—not a living soul escaped, save Richard Faulder, whom the fiend who guides the spectre shallop of the Solway had rendered proof to the perils of the deep. The fisherman himself came suddenly from his cottage, all dripping and drenched, and my father addressed him:—
“‘O, Gilbert, Gilbert, what a fearful sight is this! Has Heaven blessed thee with making thee the means of saving a human soul?’
“‘Nor soul nor body have I saved,’ said the fisherman, doggedly. ‘I have done my best; the storm proved too stark, and the lightning too fierce for me; their boat alone came near with a lady and a casket of gold, but she was swallowed up with the surge.’
“My father confessed afterwards that he was struck with the tone in which these words were delivered, and made answer—
“‘If thou hast done thy best to save souls to-night, a bright reward will be thine;—if thou hast been fonder for gain than for working the mariners’ redemption, thou hast much to answer for.’
“As he uttered these words, an immense wave rolled landward, as far as the place where they stood; it almost left its foam on their faces, and suddenly receding, deposited at their feet the dead body of the lady. As my father lifted her in his arms, he observed that the jewels which had adorned her hair—at that time worn long—had been forcibly rent away; the diamonds and gold that enclosed her neck, and ornamented the bosom of her rich satin dress, had been torn off,—the rings removed from her fingers,—and on her neck, lately so lily-white and pure, there appeared the marks of hands—not laid there in love and gentleness, but with a fierce and deadly grasp.
“The lady was buried with the body of her husband, side by side, in Caerlaverock burial-ground. My father never openly accused Gilbert the fisherman of having murdered the lady for her riches, as she reached the shore, preserved from sinking, as was supposed, by her long, wide, and stiff satin robes;—but from that hour till the hour of his death, my father never broke bread with him—never shook him or his by the hand, nor spoke with them in wrath or in love. The fisherman from that time, too, waxed rich and prosperous; and from being the needy proprietor of a halve-net, and the tenant at will of a rude cottage, he became, by purchase, lord of a handsome inheritance, proceeded to build a bonny mansion, and called it Gyrape-ha’; and became a leading man in a flock of a purer kind of Presbyterians, and a precept and example to the community.
“But though the portioner of Gyrape-ha’ prospered wondrously, his claims to parochial distinction, and the continuance of his fortune, were treated with scorn by many, and with doubt by all; though nothing open or direct was said, yet looks, more cutting at times than the keenest speech, and actions still more expressive, showed that the hearts of honest men were alienated—the cause was left to his own interpretation. The peasant scrupled to become his servant; sailors hesitated to receive his grain on board, lest perils should find them on the deep; the beggar ceased to solicit alms; the drover and horse-couper—an unscrupulous generation—found out a more distant mode of concluding bargains than by shaking his hand; his daughters, handsome and blue-eyed, were neither wooed nor married; no maiden would hold tryst with his sons, though maidens were then as little loth as they are now; and the aged peasant, as he passed his new mansion, would shake his head and say—‘The voice of spilt blood will be lifted up against thee; and a spirit shall come up from the waters, and cause the corner-stone of thy habitation to tremble and quake.’
It happened, during the summer which succeeded this unfortunate shipwreck, that I accompanied my father to the Solway, to examine his nets. It was near midnight, the tide was making, and I sat down by his side and watched the coming of the waters. The shore was glittering in starlight as far as the eye could reach. Gilbert, the fisherman, had that morning removed from his cottage to his new mansion; the former was therefore untenanted, and the latter, from its vantage-ground on the crest of the hill, threw down to us the sound of mirth, and music, and dancing,—a revelry common in Scotland on taking possession of a new house. As we lay quietly looking on the swelling sea, and observing the water-fowl swimming and ducking in the increasing waters, the sound of the merriment became more audible. My father listened to the mirth, looked to the sea, looked to the deserted cottage, and then to the new mansion, and said—