late. Partly to show my knowledge, and so relieve the party
from an awkward strain, partly because I was curious, I pursued the
subject.

"You mean the fish?" I asked.

"Whatten fish?" cried my uncle. "Fish, quo' he! Fish! Your een are fu'
o' fatness, man; your heid dozened wi' carnal leir. Fish! it's a bogle!"

He spoke with great vehemence, as though angry; and perhaps I was not
very willing to be put down so shortly, for young men are disputatious.
At least I remember I retorted hotly, crying 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 Peewic Moss. I got a glisk
o' him mysel', sittin' on his hunkers in a hag, as grey'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-ee'd uncanny ferlies.
Oh, 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 questio