The Haunted Ships - Page 2

coming with that swift and silent
swell observable when the wind is gentle; the woody curves along the land
were filling with the flood, till it touched the green branches of the
drooping trees; while in the centre current the roll and the plunge of a
thousand pellocks told to the experienced fisherman that salmon were
abundant.

As we looked, we saw an old man emerging from a path that wound to the
shore through a grove of doddered hazel; he carried a halve-net on his
back, while behind him came a girl, bearing a small harpoon, with which
the fishers are remarkably dexterous in striking their prey. The senior
seated himself on a large grey stone, which overlooked the bay, laid
aside his bonnet, and submitted his bosom and neck to the refreshing sea
breeze, and, taking his harpoon from his attendant, sat with the gravity
and composure of a spirit of the flood, with his ministering nymph behind
him. We pushed our shallop to the shore, and soon stood at their side.

"This is old Mark Macmoran the mariner, with his granddaughter Barbara,"
said Richard Faulder, in a whisper that had something of fear in it; "he
knows every creek and cavern and quicksand in Solway; has seen the
Spectre Hound that haunts the Isle of Man; has heard him bark, and at
every bark has seen a ship sink; and he has seen, too, the Haunted Ships
in full sail; and, if all tales be true, he has sailed in them
himself;--he's an awful person."

Though I perceived in the communication of my friend something of the
superstition of the sailor, I could not help thinking that common rumour
had made a happy choice in singling out old Mark to maintain her
intercourse with the invisible world. His hair, which seemed to have
refused all intercourse with the comb, hung matted upon his shoulders; a
kind of mantle, or rather blanket, pinned with a wooden skewer round his
neck, fell mid-leg down, concealing all his nether garments as far as a
pair of hose, darned with yarn of all conceivable colours, and a pair of
shoes, patched and repaired till nothing of the original structure
remained, and clasped on his feet with two massy silver buckles. If the
dress of the old man was rude and sordid, that of his granddaughter was
gay, and even rich. She wore a bodice of fine wool, wrought round the
bosom with alternate leaf and lily, and a kirtle of the same fabric,
which, almost touching her white and delicate ankle, showed her snowy
feet, so fairy-light and round that they scarcely seemed to touch the
grass where she stood. Her hair, a natural ornament which woman seeks
much to improve, was of bright glossy brown, and encumbered rather than
adorned with a snood, set thick with marine productions, among which the
small clear pearl