220 THE HOME OF A NATURALIST. 



turned to the sea. Sometimes they appeared in tlie 

 daytime and sometimes at night, but no one had 

 courage to speak to them until a sensible woman did 

 so. They were passing near her own house-door, and 

 she exclaimed, ' Oh ! what is this ? ' Then she called 

 the skipper by his name, and he spoke, but his voice 

 was like a clap of thunder, and she could not under- 

 stand him. She said, ' Moderate your speech, for I'm 

 no' fit to stand it.' Then the man spoke quite naturally, 

 and the first he said was, * What is it that goes before 

 the face of the Almighty ? ' And she replied, — 



* Justice and judgment of Thy throne 



Are made the dwelling-place : 

 Mercy, accompany'd with truth, 

 Shall go before Thy face.' 



After that the man conversed just as if he had been 

 ahve, and he told her that when their boat came off 

 the mouth o' the fiord, Madge Coutts (a witch who 

 disliked them) came into the boat and seated herself 

 on the thwart, and they knew by her look that she had 

 ' designed for their lives.' They hoped to get rid of her 

 by striking her with their huggie-staff (large fish-clip), 

 and actually succeeded in turning her over the gunwale, 

 but in a moment she dived under the boat, and got iu 

 on the other side in the form of a large black ox. 

 Putting down her horns, she struck them into the boat 

 and drew out the hassen, and then the boat, of course, 

 went to pieces. The skipper said he could not rest 

 because of some transaction not quite honest between 

 himself and a brother, and he begged the woman to set 



