But
what has all that to do with haunted shallops, visionary mariners, and
bottomless boats? I have heard myself as pleasant a tale about the
Haunted Ships and their unworldly crews, as any one would wish to hear
in a winter evening. It was told me by young Benjie Macharg, one summer
night, sitting on Arbiglandbank: the lad intended a sort of love
meeting; but all that he could talk of was about smearing sheep and
shearing sheep, and of the wife which the Norway elves of the Haunted
Ships made for his uncle Sandie Macharg. And I shall tell ye the tale
as the honest lad told it to me.
"Alexander Macharg, besides being the laird of three acres of peatmoss,
two kale gardens, and the owner of seven good milch cows, a pair of
horses, and six pet sheep, was the husband of one of the handsomest
women in seven parishes. Many a lad sighed the day he was brided; and
a Nithsdale laird and two Annandale moorland farmers drank themselves
to their last linen, as well as their last shilling, through sorrow
for her loss.
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