We have tried again and again, for our own
amusement, to reproduce a little of Shaw's
English. He is a true Gael, and is speaking a
foreign tongue, acquired in early youth. His
language is at once remarkable for its obscurity
and the use of big words, and yet for a strange
felicity of verbal touch. He attaches a certain
meaning to words, and tries hard to be explicit.
For example, speaking once of the Gaelic, and
becoming warm in its praise: "the Gaelic,"
he said, "is a kind of guttural language, a
principal and positive language; a language,
d'ye see, full of knowledge and essence." It
would be difficult to find anything obscurer
than the beginning of the explanation, or more
felicitous than its conclusion. The one word
"essence" is perfect in its terse expression of
meaning.

"I'm of the opinion," said Hamish, quietly
surveying the heavens, "that the nicht will be
good. Yon's a clear sky to windward, and
there's nae kerry. I would a heap sooner sail
a craft like this by nicht than by day, the
weather is mair settled between gloaming and
sunrise; and you have one great advantage:
the light is aye gaining on ye, instead o' the
darkness."

"But Shaw, man," cried the Viking, "we
are creeping closer and closer to the land, and
it will be a fearful business making it out in
the mirk!"

Shaw shrugged his shoulders.

"If we canna see it, we maun just smell it,"
he said. "It's useless to fash your head."

"A coast sown with rocks as thick as if
they had been shaken out of a pepper-box!
Reefs here, danger everywhere! And not a
beacon nearer than Rhu Hunish lighthouse!
O my God!"

And the Viking wailed.

By this time the summer night had quite
closed in; Canna and Skye had long faded out
of sight behind, but we could still make out
the form of the land ahead. The wind was
rising again, and blowing gently on our
quarter, so we bade fair to make the coast
of the Long Island sooner than was
advisable. Still, it would have been injudicious
to remain any longer than was necessary
out in the open; for a storm might come on
by morning, and seal our fate. The best
plan was to creep to within a couple of miles
of the land, and hang about until we had
sufficient daylight to make out our situation. It
was even possible, if it did not grow much
darker, that we might be able to make out
the mouth of Loch Boisdale in the night.

The Viking plunged below to the charts.
To while away the time, the Wanderer began
talking to the steersman about superstition.
It was a fine eerie situation for a talk
on that subject, and the still summer night,
with the deep dreary murmur of the sea,
gathered powerfully on the imagination.

"Hamish," said the Wanderer, abruptly,
"do you believe in ghosts?"

Hamish puffed his pipe leisurely for some
time before replying.

"I'm of the opinion," he replied at last,
beginning with the expression habitual to him—
"I'm of the opinion that there's strange things
in the world. I never saw a ghost, and I
don't expect to see one. If the Scripture says
true—I mean the Scripture, no' the ministers—
there has been ghosts seen before, and there
may be now. The folk used to say there was
a Ben-shee in Skipness Castle, a Ben-shee
with white hair and a much like an old wife,
and my father saw it with his own een before
he died. They're curious people over in Barra,
and they believe stranger things than that."

"In witchcraft, perhaps?"

"There's more than them believes in witchcraft.
When I was a young man on board the
Petrel (she's one of Middleton's fish-boats and
is over at Howth now) the winds were that
wild, that there seemed sma' chance of winning
hame before the new year. Weel, the skipper
was a Skye man, and had great faith in an auld
wife who lived alone up on the hillside; and
without speaking a word to any o' us, he went
up to bid wi' her for a fair wind. He crossed
her hand wi' siller, and she told him to bury a
live cat wi' its head to the airt wanted, and
then to steal a spoon from some house, and get
awa'. He buried the cat, and he stole the
spoon. It's curious, but sure as ye live, the
wind changed that night into the north-west,
and never shifted till the Petrel was in Tobermory."

"Once let me be the hero of an affair like
that," cried the Wanderer, "and I'll believe
in the devil for ever after. But it was a queer
process."

"The ways o' God are droll," returned Shaw,
seriously. "Some say that in old times the
witches made a causeway o' whales from Rhu
Hunish to Dunvegan Head. There are auld
wives o'er yonder yet, who hae the name of
going out wi' the deil every night, in the shape
o' blue hares, and I kenned a man who thought
he shot one wi' a siller button. I dinna believe
all I hear, but I dinna just disbelieve either.
Ye've heard of the Evil Eye?"

"Certainly."

"When we were in Canna, I noticed a fine
cow and calf standing by a house near the
kirkyard, and I said to the wife as I passed
(she was syning her pails at the door), 'Yon's
a bonnie bit calf ye hae with the auld cow.'
'Aye,' says she, 'but I hope ye didna look at
them o'er keen'—meaning, ye ken, that maybe
I had the Evil Eye. I laughed and told her
that was a thing ne'er belong't to me nor mine.
That minds me of an auld wife near Loch
Boisdale, who had a terrible bad name for
killing kye and doing mischief on corn. She
was gleed,* and had black hair. One day,
when the folk were in kirk, she reached o'er
her hand to a bairn that was lying beside her,
and touched its cheek wi' her finger. Weel,
that moment the bairn (it was a lassie and had
red hair) began greeting and turning its head
from side to side like folk in fever. It kept on