“‘My son, I have a counsel to give thee; treasure it in thy heart, and practise it in thy life: the daughters of him of Gyrape-ha’ are fair, and have an eye that would wile away the wits of the wisest. Their father has wealth,—I say nought of the way he came by it,—they will have golden portions doubtless. But I would rather lay thy head aneath the gowans in Caerlaverock kirkyard (and son have I none beside thee), than see thee lay it on the bridal pillow with the begotten of that man, though she had Nithsdale for her dowry. Let not my words be as seed sown on the ocean. I may not now tell thee why this warning is given. Before that fatal shipwreck, I would have said Prudence Gyrape, in her kirtle, was a better bride than some who have golden dowers. I have long thought some one would see a sight; and often, while holding my halve-net in the midnight tide, have I looked for something to appear, for where blood is shed there doth the spirit haunt for a time, and give warning to man. May I be strengthened to endure the sight!’
“I answered not, being accustomed to regard my father’s counsel as a matter not to be debated, as a solemn command: we heard something like the rustling of wings on the water, accompanied by a slight curling motion of the tide. ‘God haud His right hand about us!’ said my father, breathing thick with emotion and awe, and looking on the sea with a gaze so intense that his eyes seemed to dilate, and the hair of his forehead to project forward, and bristle into life. I looked, but observed nothing, save a long line of thin and quivering light, dancing along the surface of the sea: it ascended the bank, on which it seemed to linger for a moment, and then entering the fisherman’s cottage, made roof and rafter gleam with a sudden illumination. ‘I’ll tell thee what, Gibbie Gyrape,’ said my father, ‘I wouldna be the owner of thy heart, and the proprietor of thy right hand, for all the treasures in earth and ocean.’
“A loud and piercing scream from the cottage made us thrill with fear, and in a moment the figures of three human beings rushed into the open air, and ran towards us with a swiftness which supernatural dread alone could inspire. We instantly knew them to be three noted smugglers who infested the country; and rallying when they found my father maintain his ground, they thus mingled their fears and the secrets of their trade, for terror fairly overpowered their habitual caution.
“‘I vow by the night tide, and the crooked timber,’ said Willie Weethause, ‘I never beheld sic a light as yon since our distillation pipe took fire, and made a burnt instead of a drink offering of our spirits; I’ll uphold it comes for nae good—a warning maybe—sae ye may gang on, Wattie Bouseaway, wi’ yer wickedness; as for me, I’se gang hame and repent.’
“‘Saulless bodie!’ said his companion, whose natural hardihood was considerably supported by his communion with the brandy cup—‘saulless bodie, for a flaff o’ fire and a maiden’s shadow, would ye foreswear the gallant trade? Saul to gude! but auld Miller Morison shall turn yer thrapple into a drain-pipe to wyse the waste water from his mill, if ye turn back now, and help us nae through wi’ as strong an importation as ever cheered the throat, and cheeped in the crapin. Confound the fuzhionless bodie! he glowers as if this fine starlight were something frae the warst side o’ the world, and thae staring een o’ his are busy shaping heaven’s sweetest and balmiest air into the figures of wraiths and goblins.’
“‘Robert Telfer,’ said my father, addressing the third smuggler, ‘tell me naught of the secrets of your perilous trade; but tell me what you have seen, and why ye uttered that fearful scream, that made the wood-doves start from Caerlaverock pines.’
“‘I’ll tell ye what, goodman,’ said the mariner, ‘I have seen the fires of heaven running as thick along the sky, and on the surface of the ocean, as ye ever saw the blaze on a bowl o’ punch at a merry-making, and neither quaked nor screamed; but ye’ll mind the light that came to that cottage to-night was one for some fearful purport, which let the wise expound; sae it lessened nae one’s courage to quail for sic an apparition? ’Od, if I thought living soul would ever make the start I gied an upcast to me, I’d drill his breast-bane with my dirk like a turnip-lantern.’
“My father mollified the wrath of this maritime desperado, by assuring him that he beheld the light go from the sea to the cottage, and that he shook with terror, for it seemed no common light.
“‘Ou, then,’ said hopeful Robin, ‘since it was ane o’ our ain cannie sea apparitions, I care less about it. I took it for some landward sprite! And now I think on’t, where were my een? Did it no stand amang its ain light, with its long hanks of hair dripping and drenched; with a casket of gold in ae hand, and the other guarding its throat? I’ll be bound it’s the ghost o’ some sonsie lass that has had her neck nipped for her gold; and had she stayed till I emptied the bicker o’ brandy, I would have asked a cannie question or twa.’
“Willie Weethause had now fairly overcome his consternation, and began to feel all his love return for the ‘gallant trade,’ as his comrade called it.