The Merry Men | Page 7

out upon
childish superstitions.
'And ye come frae the College!' sneered Uncle Gordon. 'Gude kens
what they learn folk there; it's no muckle service onyway. Do ye think,
man, that there's naething in a' yon saut wilderness o' a world oot wast
there, wi' the sea grasses growin', an' the sea beasts fechtin', an' the sun

glintin' down into it, day by day? Na; the sea's like the land, but
fearsomer. If there's folk ashore, there's folk in the sea - deid they may
be, but they're folk whatever; and as for deils, there's nane that's like the
sea deils. There's no sae muckle harm in the land deils, when a's said
and done. Lang syne, when I was a callant in the south country, I mind
there was an auld, bald bogle in the Peewie Moss. I got a glisk o' him
mysel', sittin' on his hunkers in a hag, as gray's a tombstane. An', troth,
he was a fearsome-like taed. But he steered naebody. Nae doobt, if ane
that was a reprobate, ane the Lord hated, had gane by there wi' his sin
still upon his stamach, nae doobt the creature would hae lowped upo'
the likes o' him. But there's deils in the deep sea would yoke on a
communicant! Eh, sirs, if ye had gane doon wi' the puir lads in the
CHRIST-ANNA, ye would ken by now the mercy o' the seas. If ye had
sailed it for as lang as me, ye would hate the thocht of it as I do. If ye
had but used the een God gave ye, ye would hae learned the
wickedness o' that fause, saut, cauld, bullering creature, and of a' that's
in it by the Lord's permission: labsters an' partans, an' sic like, howking
in the deid; muckle, gutsy, blawing whales; an' fish - the hale clan o'
them - cauld-wamed, blind-eed uncanny ferlies. O, sirs,' he cried, 'the
horror - the horror o' the sea!'
We were all somewhat staggered by this outburst; and the speaker
himself, after that last hoarse apostrophe, appeared to sink gloomily
into his own thoughts. But Rorie, who was greedy of superstitious lore,
recalled him to the subject by a question.
'You will not ever have seen a teevil of the sea?' he asked.
'No clearly,' replied the other. 'I misdoobt if a mere man could see ane
clearly and conteenue in the body. I hae sailed wi' a lad - they ca'd him
Sandy Gabart; he saw ane, shure eneueh, an' shure eneueh it was the
end of him. We were seeven days oot frae the Clyde - a sair wark we
had had - gaun north wi' seeds an' braws an' things for the Macleod. We
had got in ower near under the Cutchull'ns, an' had just gane about by
soa, an' were off on a lang tack, we thocht would maybe hauld as far's
Copnahow. I mind the nicht weel; a mune smoored wi' mist; a fine
gaun breeze upon the water, but no steedy; an' - what nane o' us likit to

hear - anither wund gurlin' owerheid, amang thae fearsome, auld stane
craigs o' the Cutchull'ns. Weel, Sandy was forrit wi' the jib sheet; we
couldnae see him for the mains'l, that had just begude to draw, when a'
at ance he gied a skirl. I luffed for my life, for I thocht we were ower
near Soa; but na, it wasnae that, it was puir Sandy Gabart's deid skreigh,
or near hand, for he was deid in half an hour. A't he could tell was that
a sea deil, or sea bogle, or sea spenster, or sic-like, had clum up by the
bowsprit, an' gi'en him ae cauld, uncanny look. An', or the life was oot
o' Sandy's body, we kent weel what the thing betokened, and why the
wund gurled in the taps o' the Cutchull'ns; for doon it cam' - a wund do
I ca' it! it was the wund o' the Lord's anger - an' a' that nicht we foucht
like men dementit, and the niest that we kenned we were ashore in
Loch Uskevagh, an' the cocks were crawin' in Benbecula.'
'It will have been a merman,' Rorie said.
'A merman!' screamed my uncle with immeasurable scorn. 'Auld wives'
clavers! There's nae sic things as mermen.'
'But what was the creature like?' I asked.
'What like was it? Gude forbid that we suld ken what like it was! It had
a kind of a heid upon it - man could say nae mair.'
Then Rorie, smarting under the affront, told several tales of mermen,
mermaids, and sea-horses that had come ashore upon the islands and
attacked the crews of boats upon the sea; and my uncle, in spite of his
incredulity, listened with