A Practical Guide to Teaching

Computing and ICT in the Secondary

School 2nd Edition Andrew Connell
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://textbookfull.com/product/a-practical-guide-to-teaching-computing-and-ict-in-the
-secondary-school-2nd-edition-andrew-connell/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

Teaching Secondary and Middle School Mathematics 5th

Edition Daniel J. Brahier

https://textbookfull.com/product/teaching-secondary-and-middle-
school-mathematics-5th-edition-daniel-j-brahier/

Teaching secondary school mathematics research and

practice for the 21st century Geiger

https://textbookfull.com/product/teaching-secondary-school-
mathematics-research-and-practice-for-the-21st-century-geiger/

Teaching and Learning Secondary School Mathematics

Canadian Perspectives in an International Context Ann
Kajander

https://textbookfull.com/product/teaching-and-learning-secondary-
school-mathematics-canadian-perspectives-in-an-international-
context-ann-kajander/

The Mathematics That Every Secondary School Math

Teacher Needs to Know 2nd Edition Alan Sultan

https://textbookfull.com/product/the-mathematics-that-every-
secondary-school-math-teacher-needs-to-know-2nd-edition-alan-
sultan/
Teaching Statistics: A Bag of Tricks 2nd Edition Andrew
Gelman

https://textbookfull.com/product/teaching-statistics-a-bag-of-
tricks-2nd-edition-andrew-gelman/

The Learning and Teaching of Geometry in Secondary

Schools A Modeling Perspective 1st Edition Pat Herbst

https://textbookfull.com/product/the-learning-and-teaching-of-
geometry-in-secondary-schools-a-modeling-perspective-1st-edition-
pat-herbst/

Secondary School Mathematics for Class 9 Secondary

School Mathematics for Class 9 R. S. Aggarwal

https://textbookfull.com/product/secondary-school-mathematics-
for-class-9-secondary-school-mathematics-for-class-9-r-s-
aggarwal/

1L of a Ride A Well Traveled Professor s Roadmap to

Success in the First Year of Law School 2nd Edition
Andrew Mcclurg

https://textbookfull.com/product/1l-of-a-ride-a-well-traveled-
professor-s-roadmap-to-success-in-the-first-year-of-law-
school-2nd-edition-andrew-mcclurg/

Improvised Theatre and the Autism Spectrum A Practical

Guide to Teaching Social Connection and Communication
Skills 1st Edition Kramer

https://textbookfull.com/product/improvised-theatre-and-the-
autism-spectrum-a-practical-guide-to-teaching-social-connection-
and-communication-skills-1st-edition-kramer/
A Practical Guide to Teaching
Computing and ICT in the
Secondary School

A Practical Guide to Teaching Computing and ICT in the Secondary School offers
straightforward guidance and inspiration to support all trainee and newly qualified
teachers, as well as their tutors and mentors. It will also be a source of support and
ideas for qualified teachers who wish to develop their teaching of Computing as a
subject, in light of recent changes to the National Curriculum.
Grounded in the best research and practice available, it focuses on the key
pedagogical issues which arise during teacher training and offers stimulating
activities based on tried and tested strategies. Comprehensively updated and
restructured to reflect recent changes in the curriculum, Initial Teacher Training
Standards and classroom technologies, it covers key aspects of Computing and ICT
teaching, including:

• Planning pupil learning and progression

• Managing the learning environment
• Using assessment to improve pupil learning and your own teaching
• Developing pupils’ understanding of key concepts and ideas in Computing,
including Computational Thinking and Programming
• Pupils’ common misconceptions and how to avoid them
• Helping pupils appreciate good and bad effects of computing.

A Practical Guide to Teaching Computing and ICT in the Secondary School, written by
experts in the field, provides detailed examples of theory in practice, enabling you
to analyse and reflect on your own teaching in order to ensure pupil learning is
maximised.

Andrew Connell is Head of Initial Teacher Education and Senior Lecturer at the
University of Chester, UK.

Anthony Edwards is Associate Professor of Education and formerly Head of the

School of Educational Studies at Liverpool Hope University, UK.
Routledge Teaching Guides
Series Editors: Susan Capel and Marilyn Leask

Other titles in the series:

A Practical Guide to Teaching Music in the Secondary School
Edited by Julie Evans and Chris Philpott
A Practical Guide to Teaching Science in the Secondary School
Douglas P. Newton
A Practical Guide to Teaching Design and Technology in the Secondary School
Edited by Gwyneth Owen-Jackson
A Practical Guide to Teaching History in the Secondary School
Edited by Martin Hunt
A Practical Guide to Teaching Modern Foreign Languages in the Secondary School
Edited by Norbert Pachler and Ana Redondo
A Practical Guide to Teaching Citizenship in the Secondary School
Edited by Liam Gearon
A Practical Guide to Teaching ICT in the Secondary School
Edited by Steve Kennewell, Andrew Connell, Anthony Edwards, Michael Hammond and
Cathy Wickens
A Practical Guide to Teaching English in the Secondary School
Edited by Andrew Green
A Practical Guide to Teaching Mathematics in the Secondary School
Edited by Clare Lee, Sue Jonston-Wilder and Robert Ward-Penny
A Practical Guide to Teaching Physical Education in the Secondary School,
2nd Edition
Edited by Susan Capel and Peter Breckon

These Practical Guides have been designed as companions to Learning to Teach X

Subject in the Secondary School. For information on the Routledge Teaching
Guides series please visit our website at www.routledge.com/education.
A Practical Guide to Teaching
Computing and ICT in the
Secondary School
Second Edition

Andrew Connell and Anthony Edwards

with Alison Hramiak, Gavin Rhoades and Neil Stanley
Second edition published 2015
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2015 Andrew Connell and Anthony Edwards for text, editing and selection;
Alison Hramiak, Gavin Rhoades and Neil Stanley for their individual
contributions.
The right of Andrew Connell, Anthony Edwards, Alison Hramiak, Gavin
Rhoades and Neil Stanley to be identified as authors of this work has been
asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent
to infringe.
First edition published by Routledge 2007
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A practical guide to teaching computing and ICT in the secondary school /
Andrew Connell and Anthony Edwards, with Alison Hramiak, Gavin Rhodes
and Neil Stanley. -- 2nd edition.
pages cm
Revised edition of: A practical guide to teaching ICT in the secondary school /
edited by Steve Kennewell ... [et al.]. 2007.
Collection of separate contributions by the authors.
1. Information technology--Study and teaching (Secondary) 2. Information
technology--Study and teaching (Secondary)--Great Britain. 3. Computer science-
-Study and teaching (Secondary) 4. High school teaching--Vocational guidance. I.
Connell, Andrew, 1976- II. Edwards, A. D. (Anthony Davies) III. Hramiak,
Alison. IV. Title.
T58.5.P72 2015
004.071'2--dc23
2014017170

ISBN: 978-1-138-81308-3 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-415-81946-6 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-75105-4 (ebk)

Typeset in Palatino and Frutiger

by Saxon Graphics Ltd, Derby
Contents

Acknowledgements vii
Notes on contributors ix
Series editors’ introduction xi

Introduction to the book 1

Part 1. Your Development as a Teacher of Computing 3

Introduction to Part 1 5

1 Developing your capability to teach Computing 7

Gavin Rhoades
Appendix 1.1 18
Appendix 1.2 22
Appendix 1.3 48

2 Planning Computing learning and teaching 49

Andrew Connell and Anthony Edwards
Appendix 2.1 58

3 Managing the Computing classroom environment to

improve learning 59
Andrew Connell and Anthony Edwards

4 Assessment and Computing 70

Neil Stanley and Alison Hramiak

Part 2. Key Content in Computing Teaching 91

Introduction to Part 2 93

5 Computational Thinking 95
Andrew Connell and Anthony Edwards
Appendix 5.1 106
Appendix 5.2 107

v
CONTENTS

6 Simulation 108
Andrew Connell and Anthony Edwards

7 ICT and common misconceptions 119

Andrew Connell and Anthony Edwards

8 Computing and Society 129

Andrew Connell and Anthony Edwards

Appendices 138

A Planning templates 138

B Examples of simple peer- and self-assessment tools 150

Index 151

vi
Acknowledgements

Andrew Connell and Anthony Edwards would like to thank all the colleagues,
teachers, and trainee teachers whose work contributed to the case studies included
throughout the book.

vii
This page intentionally left blank
Contributors

Andrew Connell is Head of Initial Teacher Education and a Senior Lecturer in

Computing Teacher Education at the University of Chester. He has been Director of
PGCE; Director of Subject Knowledge Enhancement (SKE) provision; Course
Leader for PGCE (conventional and School Direct) Computing; Course Leader for
SKE courses in Computing and Module Leader for the Undergraduate Module
Digital Technologies: Rethinking Learning and Teaching at Keele University,
Staffordshire. Prior to that he was Associate Director of PGCE Secondary and
Course Leader for PGCE ICT at Liverpool Hope University. Before that he was a
teacher in the Wirral and Staffordshire and Head of ICT and Business in Stoke-on-
Trent. His research interests include Pedagogy and Computing, Creativity and
Technologies, Initial Teacher Education and Mentoring. He has co-edited books,
been published nationally and internationally and reviews regularly for a number
of publishers. He contributed to Learning to Teach ICT in the Secondary School and A
Practical Guide for Learning to Teach ICT in the Secondary School for Routledge. He is
currently a member of the national independent Computing Expert Group, a
steering committee member of the Royal Society UK Forum on Computing
Education and Chair of the Association for IT in Education (ITTE).

Dr Anthony David Edwards is currently Associate Professor of Education at

Liverpool Hope University. He has held a variety of posts in higher education,
including Head of School of Educational Studies, Director of Continuing
Professional Development and Head of IT. He has also worked in schools in the UK
and other countries. His recent publications include books such as New Technology
and Education for Bloomsbury, and a series of papers in peer-reviewed journals on
the link between technology and education. He has contributed to Learning to Teach
ICT in the Secondary School and A Practical Guide for Learning to Teach ICT in the
Secondary School for Routledge. He is currently researching and writing on the link
between technology and creativity.

Dr Alison Hramiak is a Senior Lecturer and TeachFirst tutor at Sheffield Hallam

University. She is the regional Computer Science Lead for the Yorkshire and
Humberside Region, and a Professional Tutor across the region also. Her research
is focused on using new technologies in learning and teaching, assessment and
feedback, and also on cultural adaptations in beginning teachers. She is a committee
member of ITTE and produces and edits their national Newsletter, as well as

ix
CONTRIBUTORS

organising the national conference. She has co-authored several books focusing on
learning and teaching and reviews for a variety of international journals and
conferences, and the HEA. Alison’s work is published nationally and internationally,
in peer-reviewed educational journals, and she also writes regularly for the
Guardian and The Times Higher Educational Supplement (THES). She is a Fellow of the
HEA.

Gavin Rhoades is a Senior Lecturer in the Institute of Education at the University

of Wolverhampton, where he teaches on a range of undergraduate and postgraduate
courses. Until recently, he was Pathway Leader for the secondary Computing PGCE
course. Prior to this, he was Head of ICT, and later, an Assistant Head at secondary
schools in Staffordshire and Cumbria. His research interests include computing
pedagogy and online dialogic learning.

Neil Stanley has recently finished working at Liverpool John Moores University,
having been there for over 35 years: initially with the Microelectronics Education
Programme and in-service work, but more recently, working with undergraduate
and postgraduate teacher education students. As a graduate computer scientist he
worked in this discipline, in ICT and mathematics, as well as general education. He
still maintains links with this work through the British Computer Society (BCS),
Twitter and his honorary membership of the Association for IT Education (ITTE).

x
Series Editors’ Introduction

This practical work book is part of a series of textbooks for student teachers called the
Routledge Teaching Guides. It complements and extends the popular generic book entitled
Learning to Teach in the Secondary School: A Companion to School Experience, as well as the
subject-specific book Learning to Teach Computing and ICT in the Secondary School. We
anticipate that you will want to use this book in conjunction with these other books.
Teaching is rapidly becoming a more research- and evidence-informed profession.
Research and professional evidence about good practice underpins the Learning to
Teach in the Secondary School series and these practical workbooks. Both the generic and
subject-specific books in the Learning to Teach in the Secondary School series provide
theoretical, research and professional evidence-based advice and guidance, to support
you as you focus on developing aspects of your teaching or your pupils’ learning as
you progress through your initial teacher education course and beyond. Although the
generic and subject-specific books include some case studies and tasks to help you
consider the issues, the practical application of material is not their major focus. That is
the role of this book.
This book aims to reinforce your understanding of aspects of your teaching, support
you in aspects of your development as a teacher and your teaching, and enable you to
analyse your success as a teacher in maximising pupils’ learning by focusing on
practical applications. The practical activities in this book can be used in a number of
ways. Some activities are designed to be undertaken by you individually, others as a
joint task in pairs and yet others as group work working with, for example, other
student teachers or a school or university based tutor. Your tutor may use the activities
with a group of student teachers.
In England, you have a range of colleagues to support you in your classroom. They
also provide an additional resource on which you can draw. In any case, you will, of
course, need to draw on additional resources to support your development. Other
resources are available on a range of websites, including that for Learning to Teach in the
Secondary School: A Companion to School Experience, 6th edition (www.routledge.com/
cw/Capel), which lists key websites for Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England.
We do hope that this practical work book is useful in supporting your development
as a teacher. We welcome feedback which can be incorporated into future editions.
Susan Capel
Marilyn Leask
Series Editors

xi
This page intentionally left blank
Introduction

This book is designed to provide practical guidance and ideas to support trainee
teachers of Computing, along with their tutors and mentors. It will also be of value
to qualified teachers who wish to develop their teaching of Computing as a subject,
particularly given the recent changes to the National Curriculum.
It links to Learning to Teach in the Secondary School: A Companion to School Experience
(edited by Susan Capel, Marilyn Leask and Tony Turner) and the forthcoming
subject-specific companion book, Learning to Teach Computing in the Secondary School.
It supplements these texts by providing a range of activities based on tried and
tested strategies, designed to support trainee teachers’ development in aspects of
their teaching. This book provides a range of references and resources associated
with each chapter, including photocopiable materials.
The authors are at the leading edge of research into the learning and teaching of
Computing. The case studies and resources have been developed from their own
experiences, across a range of successful teacher training courses. They are also
members of the Association for IT in Teacher Education (ITTE), the leading
association in Computing in initial teacher training.
The book focuses on the key pedagogical issues which arise during teacher
training, such as:

• planning pupil learning and progression

• managing the learning environment
• using assessment to improve pupil learning and your own teaching
• developing pupils’ understanding of key concepts and ideas in Computing
• anticipating where pupils get confused and seeking to avoid this
• helping pupils appreciate the good and bad effects of computing.

Practical activities are at the heart of the approach taken in the book, promoting
critical and strategic thinking, as well as guidance on ‘how to’ do things. The tasks
will stimulate you to seek evidence to support developments in practice, from your
own experiences or from reading, and will guide your reflection on the evidence.
The book adopts the view that knowledge, understanding and skills in teaching
Computing will be acquired over a period of time, and that correct answers are not
always available. The resources can be used individually and/or in groups.
This book is in two parts.

1
INTRODUCTION

Part One: Your Development as a Teacher of Computing aims to provide you, the
busy Computing teacher, with practical advice and guidance on the key areas of:
developing your capacity in order to teach; planning lessons in Computing;
managing the classroom environment; and the assessment of Computing. It will be
valuable during training, but is in sufficient depth to be equally useful in the initial
years of teaching.
Part Two: Key Content in Computing Teaching examines key content areas you need
to deliver, and a range of issues associated with them. It gives recommended
techniques, strategies and ideas on ‘Computational thinking’, ‘Simulation’,
‘Common Misconceptions’ and ‘Computing and Society’. It is designed to help you
motivate learners who are increasingly experienced users of Computing.
Throughout the book there will be opportunities to raise ideas around ethics,
impact and safety issues and activities to help you reflect on the learning and
teaching of Computing.
The book does not need to be followed in the order presented, nor does it
necessarily have to be read from start to finish, though we hope that you will do so.
Our intention is that you will engage with the material as and when required.
There are many cross-references provided within the text to help you link the ideas
found in different parts. There are also references to supplementary resources and
texts. Visit the eResources page for the book (http://www.routledge.com/books/
details/9780415819466/) to find live links to Web resources referred to in the text,
plus editable versions of planning templates.

2
Part 1
Your Development as a
Teacher of Computing
This page intentionally left blank
GAVIN RHOADES

Working through exemplars will enable you to get an idea about the first
question, but the second can be far more difficult. It is a good idea to attempt a
coursework project for yourself before you try to introduce it to the pupils, using
the software which will be available in school in order to get a feel for the
requirements, possible ambiguities with the task and probable pupils’
misconceptions. This will also help you to subdivide a large amount of work into
manageable tasks that the pupils will be able to complete. It is possible with some
courses that evidence produced for one unit can also contribute to the evidence
required for another unit, if this has been thought out and planned for by the
teacher prior to the start of the coursework. The next step is to work out a schedule
for completion of the various stages of the coursework. When you do this, you need
to anticipate problems that may prevent pupils from completing their work and
remember that many pupils have difficulty meeting deadlines. You also need to
consider the timings of other events in the school calendar, such as school trips,
mock exams, modular exams and the coursework deadlines for other subjects.
Remember to build in sufficient time for marking and chasing up missing
coursework.

Task 1.5

Spreadsheet modelling
Consider a topic such as spreadsheet modelling or the creation of a relational
database. Pupils, and some teachers, often see these as ‘hard’ to understand or
explain. Why is that? What is it about these topics that teachers and pupils find
difficult to explain or difficult to understand? Is there anything that could be
done to make them easier to teach? Ask a member of your peer network (or a
colleague in school) for their comments. Which of the three domains that
Shulman (1986) described are relevant here?

REFERENCES
EPICT, (2010) The EPICT Syllabus, condensed version, EPICT. Available at: http://
www.epict.org/files/EPICTsyllabus.pdf Accessed 03/04/2014.
Shulman, L. (1986) Those who understand: Knowledge Growth in Teaching. Educational
Researcher, 15(2), 4–14.
Watkins, C. and Mortimore, P. (1999) Chapter 1, in Mortimore, P., (ed.), Understanding
Pedagogy and its Impact on Learning. London: Sage, p. 3.

USEFUL WEBSITES AND RESOURCES

Association for Learning Technology http://www.alt.ac.uk/

Examination bodies:

• www.aqa.org.uk
• www.ocr.org.uk
• www.edexcel.com
• www.wjec.co.uk

ASFI http://www.asfi.org.uk

16
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
in his note-book a list of the ladies who, he thought, might be fit
candidates for the honour he intended them, the merits of the
multitude being settled, in his mind, in exact accordance with the
supposed extent of their treasures. Let not the reader mistake the
term. By treasure he neither meant worth nor beauty, but the article
which can be paid down in bullion or in bank-notes, possessing the
magic properties of adding field to field, and tenement to tenement.
One after another the pen was drawn through their names, as
occasion offered of scrutinising their means more clearly, or as lack-
success obliged him, until the candidates were reduced to a couple;
to wit—Miss Jenny Drybones, a tall spinster, lean and ill-looking,
somewhat beyond her grand climacteric; and Mrs Martha Bouncer, a
brisk widow, fat, fair, and a few years on the better side of forty.
Miss Jenny, from her remote youth upwards, had been
housekeeper to her brother, a retired wine merchant, who departed
this life six years before, without occasioning any very general
lamentation; having been a man of exceedingly strict habits of
business, according to the jargon of his friends; that is to say, in plain
English, a keen, dull, plodding, avaricious old knave.
But he was rich, that was one felicity; therefore he had friends. It is
a great pity that such people ever die, as their worth, or, in other
words, their wealth, cannot gain currency in the other world; but die
he did, in spite of twenty thousand pounds and the doctor, who was
not called in till death had a firm grip of the old miser’s windpipe,
through which respiration came scant and slow, almost like the
vacant yawns of a broken bellows.
Expectant friends were staggered, as by a thunder-stroke, when
the read will, too legal for their satisfaction, left Miss Jenny in sure
and undivided possession of goods and chattels all and sundry.
For the regular period she mourned with laudable zeal, displaying
black feathers, quilled ruffles, crape veils, and starched weepers, in
great and unwonted prodigality, which no one objected to, or cavilled
about, solely because no one had any business to do so.
It was evident that her views of life from that era assumed a new
aspect, and the polar winter of her features exhibited something like
an appearance of incipient thaw; but the downy chin, wrinkled brow,
and pinched nose, were still, alas! too visible. Accordingly, it is more
than probable that, instead of renewing her youth like the eagles, she
had only made a bold and laudable attempt to rifacciamento, in thus
lighting up her features with a more frequent and general succession
of smiles.
No one can deny that, in as far as regards externals, Miss Jenny
mourned lugubriously and well, not stinting the usually allotted
number of calendar months. These passed away, and so did black
drapery; garments brightening by progressive but rapid strides. Ere
the twelve months expired, Miss Jenny flaunted about in colours as
gaudy as those of “the tiger-moth’s deep damasked wings,”—the
counterpart of the bird of paradise, the rival of the rainbow.
Widow Martha Bouncer was a lady of a different stamp. Her
features still glowed in the freshness of youthful beauty, though the
symmetry of her person was a little destroyed by a tendency to
corpulency. She dressed well; and there was a liveliness and activity
about her motions, together with an archness in her smile, which
captivated the affections of the tobacconist, rather more than was
compatible with his known and undisguised hankering after the so-
called good things of this life, the flesh-pots of Egypt.
Mrs Bouncer was the widow of a captain in a marching regiment;
consequently she had seen a good deal of the world, and had a
budget of adventures ever open for the admiration of the listening
customer. Sometimes it might even be objected, that her tongue went
a little too glibly; but she had a pretty face and a musical voice, and
seldom failed in being attended to.
The captain did not, as his profession might lead us to surmise,
decamp to the other world, after having swallowed a bullet, and
dropped the death-dealing blade from his blood-besmeared hand on
the field of battle, but quietly in his bed, with three pairs of excellent
blankets over him, not reckoning a curiously quilted counterpane.
Long anticipation lessens the shock of fate; consequently the grief of
his widow was not of that violent and overwhelming kind which a
more sharply-wound-up catastrophe is apt to occasion; but, having
noticed the slow but gradual approaches of the grim tyrant, in the
symptoms of swelled ankles, shrivelled features, troublesome cough,
and excessive debility, the event came upon her as an evil long
foreseen; and the sorrow occasioned by the exit of the captain was
sustained with becoming fortitude.
 Having been fully as free of his sacrifices to Bacchus as to the
brother of Bellona, the captain left his mate in circumstances not the
most flourishing; but she was enabled to keep up appearances, and
to preserve herself from the gulf of debt, by an annuity bequeathed to
her by her father, and by the liberality of the widows’ fund.
Time passed on at its usual careless jog-trot; and animal spirits,
being a gift of nature, like all strong natural impulses, asserted their
legitimate sway. Mrs Martha began to smile and simper as formerly.
Folks remarked, that black suited her complexion; and Daniel Cathie
could not help giving breath to the gallant remark, as he was
discharging her last year’s account, that he never before had seen her
looking half so well.
On this hint the lady wrought. Daniel was a greasy lubberly civilian
to be sure, and could not escort her about with powdered collar,
laced beaver, and glittering epaulettes; but he was a substantial
fellow, not amiss as to looks, and with regard to circumstances,
possessing everything to render a wife comfortable and snug. Elysian
happiness, Mrs Martha was too experienced a stager to expect on
this side of the valley of death. Moreover, she had been tossed about
sufficiently in the world, and was heartily tired of a wandering life.
The height of her wise ambition, therefore, reached no higher than a
quiet settlement and a comfortable domicile. She knew that the hour
of trial was come, and sedulously set herself to work, directing
against Daniel the whole artillery of her charms. She passed before
his door every morning in her walk; and sometimes stood with her
pretty face directed to the shop window, as if narrowly examining
some article in it. She ogled him as he sat in church; looking as if she
felt happy at seeing him seated with the bailies; and Daniel was never
met abroad, but the lady drew off her silken glove, and yielded a
milk-white delicate hand to the tobacconist, who took a peculiar
pleasure in shaking it cordially. A subsequent rencontre in a stage
coach, where they enjoyed a delightful téte-à-téte together for some
miles (procul, ô procul esto profani), told with a still deeper effect;
and everything seemed in a fair way of being amicably adjusted.
Miss Jenny, undismayed by these not unmarked symptoms of
ripening intimacy, determined to pursue her own line of amatory
politics, and set her whole enginery of attack in readiness for
operation. She had always considered the shop at the cross as the
surest path for her to the temple of Bona Fortuna. Thence driven, she
was lost in hopeless mazes, and knew not where to turn.
She flaunted about, and flashed her finery in the optical observers
of Daniel, as if to say, This is a specimen,—ex uno disce omnes,—
thousands lie under this sample. Hope and fear swayed her heart by
turns, though the former passion was uppermost; yet she saw a
snake, in the form of Mrs Bouncer, lurking in her way; and she took
every lawful means, or such as an inamorata considers such, to
scotch it.
Well might Daniel be surprised at the quantity of candles made use
of in Miss Jenny’s establishment. It puzzled his utmost calculation;
for though the whole house had been illuminated from top to
bottom, and fours to the pound had been lighted at both ends, no
such quantity could be consumed. But there she was, week after
week, with her young vassal with the yellow neck behind her,
swinging a large wicker-basket over his arm, in which were
deposited, layer above layer, the various produce of Miss Jenny’s
marketing.
On Daniel, on these occasions, she showered her complaisance
with the liberality of March rains; inquiring anxiously after his
health; cautioning him to wear flannel, and beware of the
rheumatics; telling him her private news, and admiring the elegance
of his articles, while all the time her shrivelled features “grinned
horrible a ghastly smile,” which only quadrupled the “fold upon fold
innumerable” of her wrinkles, and displayed gums innocent of teeth,
—generosity not being able to elevate three rusty stumps to that
honour and dignity.
There was a strong conflict in Daniel’s mind, and the poor man
was completely “bamboozled.” Ought he to let nature have its sway
for once, take to his arms the blushing and beautiful widow, and
trust to the success of his efforts for future aggrandisement? Or must
strong habit still domineer over him, and Miss Jenny’s hook, baited
with twenty thousand pounds, draw him to the shores of wedlock, “a
willing captive?” Must he leave behind him sons and daughters with
small portions, and “the world before them, where to choose;” or
none—and his name die away among the things of the past, while
cousins ten times removed alike in blood and regard, riot on his
substance? The question was complicated, and different
interrogatories put to the oracle of his mind afforded different
responses. The affair was one, in every respect, so nicely balanced,
that “he wist not what to do.” Fortune long hung equal in the
balance, and might have done so much longer, had not an unforeseen
accident made the scale of the widow precipitately mount aloft, and
kick the beam.
It was about ten o’clock on the night of a blustering November day,
that a tall, red-haired, moustachioed, and raw-boned personage,
wrapt up in a military great-coat, alighted from the top of the
Telegraph at the Salutation Inn, and delivered his portmanteau into
the assiduous hands of Bill the waiter. He was ushered into a
comfortable room, whose flickering blazing fire mocked the
cacophony of his puckered features, and induced him hastily to doff
his envelopments, and draw in an arm-chair to the borders of the
hearthrug.
Having discussed a smoking and substantial supper, he asked Bill,
who was in the act of supplying his rummer with hot water, if a Mrs
Bouncer, an officer’s widow, resided in the neighbourhood.
“Yes,” replied Bill, “I know her well; she lives at third house round
the corner, on the second floor, turning to the door on your right
hand.”
“She is quite well, I hope?” asked the son of Mars.
“Oh! quite well, bless you; and about to take a second husband. I
hear they are to be proclaimed next week. She is making a good
bargain.”
“Next week to be married!” ejaculated the gallant captain, turning
up his eyes, and starting to his legs with a hurried perplexity.
“So I believe, sir,” continued Bill very calmly. “If you have come to
the ceremony, you will find that it does not take place till then.
Depend upon it, sir, you have mistaken the date of your invitation
card.”
“Well, waiter, you may leave me,” said the captain, stroking his
chin in evident embarrassment; “but stop, who is she about to get?”
“Oh, I thought everybody knew Mr Daniel Cathie, one of the town-
council, sir; a tobacconist, and a respectable man; likely soon to
come to the provostry, sir. He is rather up in years to be sure; but he
is as rich as a Jew.”
 “What do you say is his name?”
“Daniel Cathie, Esq., tobacconist, and a candlemaker near the
Cross. That is his name and designation,—a very respectable man,
sir.”
“Well, order the girl to have my bed well warmed, and to put pens,
ink, and paper into the room. In the meantime, bring me the boot-
jack.”
The captain kept his fiery feelings in restraint before Bill; but the
intelligence hit him like a cannon-shot. He retired almost
immediately to his bed-chamber; but a guest in the adjoining room
declared in the morning, that he had never been allowed to close his
eyes, from some person’s alternately snoring or speaking in his sleep,
as if in violent altercation with some one; and that, whenever these
sounds died away, they were only exchanged for the irregular tread
of a foot measuring the apartment, seemingly in every direction.
It was nine in the morning; and Daniel, as he was ringing a shilling
on the counter, which he had just taken for “value received,” and half
ejaculating aloud as he peered at it through his spectacles—“Not a
Birmingham, I hope”—had a card put into his hand by Jonas
Bunting, the Salutation shoeblack.
Having broken the seal, Daniel read to himself,—“A gentleman
wishes to see Mr Cathie at the Salutation Inn, on particular business,
as speedily as possible. Inquire for the gentleman in No. 7.—A
quarter before nine, A.M.”
“Some of these dunning travellers!” exclaimed Daniel to himself.
“They are continually pestering me for orders. If I had the lighting up
of the moon, I could not satisfy them all. I have a good mind not to
go, for this fellow not sending his name. It is impudence with a
vengeance, and a new way of requesting favours!” As he was
muttering these thoughts between his teeth, however, he was
proceeding in the almost unconscious act of undoing his apron,
which having flung aside, he adjusted his hair before the glass,
carefully pressed his hat into shape, and drew it down on his temples
with both hands; after which, with hasty steps, he vanished from
behind the counter.
Arriving at the inn, he was ushered into No. 7 by the officious Bill,
who handed his name before him, and closed the door after him.
 “This is an unpleasant business, Mr Cathie,” said the swaggering
captain, drawing himself up to his full length, and putting on a look
of important ferocity. “It is needless to waste words on the subject:
there is a brace of pistols, both are loaded,—take one, and I take the
other; choose either, sir. The room is fully eight paces,” added he,
striding across in a hurried manner, and clanking his iron heels on
the carpet.
“It would, I think, be but civil,” said Daniel, evidently in
considerable mental as well as bodily agitation, “to inform me what
are your intentions, before forcing me to commit murder. Probably
you have mistaken me for some other; if not, please let me know in
what you conceive I have offended you!”
“By the powers!” said Captain Thwackeray with great vehemence,
“you have injured me materially,—nay, mortally,—and either your
life, sir, or my own, sir, shall be sacrificed to the adjustment.”
While saying this, the captain took up first the one pistol, and then
the other, beating down the contents with the ramrod, and
measuring with his finger the comparative depth to which each was
loaded.
“A pretty story, certainly, to injure a gentleman in the tenderest
part, and then to beg a recital of the particulars. Have you no regard
for my feelings, sir?”
“Believe me, sir, on the word of an honest man, that as to your
meaning in this business, I am in utter darkness,” said Daniel with
cool firmness.
“To be plain, then,—to be explicit,—to come to the point, sir,—are
you not on the eve of marrying Mrs Bouncer?”
“Mrs Bouncer!” echoed the tallow-chandler, starting back, and
crimsoning. Immediately, however, commanding himself, he
continued:—“As to the truth of the case, that is another matter; but
were it as you represent it, I was unaware that I could be injuring any
one in so doing.”
“Now, sir, we have come to the point; rem tetigisti acu; and you
speak out plainly. Take your pistol,” bravoed the captain.
“No, no,—not so fast;—perhaps we may understand each other
without being driven to that alternative.”
 “Well then, sir, abjure her this moment, and resign her to me, or
one of our lives must be sacrificed.”
While he was saying this, Daniel laid his hands on one of the
pistols, and appeared as if examining it; which motion the captain
instantly took for a signal of acquiescence, and “changed his hand,
and checked his pride.”
“I hope,” continued he, evidently much softened, “that there shall
be no need of resorting to desperate measures. In a word, the affair is
this:—I have a written promise from Mrs Bouncer, that, if ever she
married a second time, her hand was mine. It matters not with the
legality of the measure, though the proceeding took place in the
lifetime of her late husband, my friend, Captain Bouncer. It is quite
an affair of honour. I assure you, sir, she has vowed to accept of none
but me, Captain Thwackeray, as his successor. If you have paid your
addresses to her in ignorance of this, I forgive you; if not, we stand
opposed as before.”
“Oh ho! if that be the way the land lies,” replied Daniel, with a
shrill whistle, “she is yours, captain, for me, and heartily welcome. I
resign her unconditionally, as you military gentlemen phrase it. A
great deal of trouble is spared by one’s speaking out. If you had told
me this, there would have been no reason for loading the pistols.
May I now wish you a good morning! ’Od save us! but these are
fearful weapons on the table! Good morning, sir.”
“Bless your heart, no,” said Captain Thwackeray, evidently much
relieved from his distressing situation. “Oh no, sir; not before we
breakfast together;” and, so saying, before Daniel had a moment’s
time for reply, he pulled the bell violently.
“Bill, bring in breakfast for two, as expeditiously as possible—(Exit
Bill). I knew that no man of honour, such as I know or believe you to
be (your appearance bespeaks it), would act such a selfish part as
deprive me of my legal right; and I trust that this transaction shall
not prevent friendly intercourse between us, if I come, as my present
intention is, to take up my abode among you in this town.”
“By no means,” said Daniel; “Mrs Bouncer is yours for me; and as
to matrimonials, I am otherwise provided. There are no grounds for
contention, captain.”
 Breakfast was discussed with admirable appetite by both. The
contents of the pistols were drawn, the powder carefully returned
into the flask, the two bullets into the waistcoat pocket, and the
instruments of destruction themselves deposited in a green woollen
case. After cordially shaking each other by the hand, the captain saw
Mr Daniel to the door, and made a very low congé, besides kissing
his hand at parting.
The captain we leave to fight his own battles, and return to our
hero, whose stoicism, notwithstanding its firmness, did not prevent
him from feeling considerably on the occasion. Towards Mrs
Bouncer he had not a Romeo-enthusiasm, but certainly a stronger
attachment than he had ever experienced for any other of her sex.
Though the case was hopeless, he did not allow himself to pine away
with “a green and yellow melancholy,” but reconciled himself to his
fate with the more facility, as the transaction between Thwackeray
and her was said to have taken place during the lifetime of her late
husband, which considerably lessened her in his estimation; having
been educated a rigid Presbyterian, and holding in great abhorrence
all such illustrations of military morality. “No, no,” thought he; “my
loss is more apparent than real: the woman who was capable of
doing such a thing, would not content herself with stopping even
there. Miss Jenny Drybones is the woman for me—I am the man for
her money.” And here a thousand selfish notions crowded on his
heart, and confirmed him in his determination, which he set about
without delay.
There was little need of delicacy in the matter; and Daniel went to
work quite in a business-like style. He commenced operations on the
offensive, offered Miss Jenny his arm, squeezed her hand, buttered
her with love-phrases, ogled her out of countenance, and haunted
her like a ghost. Refusal was in vain; and after a faint, a feeble, and
sham show of resistance, the damsel drew down her flag of defiance,
and submitted to honourable terms of capitulation.
Ten days after Miss Jenny’s surrender, their names were
proclaimed in church; and as the people stared at each other in half
wonder and half good-humour, the precentor continued, after a
slight pause, “There is also a purpose of marriage between Mrs
Martha Bouncer, at present residing in the parish, and Augustus
Thwackeray, Esq., captain of the Bengal Rangers; whoever can
produce any lawful objections against the same, he is requested to do
so, time and place convenient.”
Every forenoon and evening between that and the marriage-day,
Daniel and his intended enjoyed a delightful tête-à-tête in the lady’s
garden, walking arm-in-arm, and talking, doubtless, of home-
concerns and Elysian prospects that awaited them. The pair would
have formed a fit subject for the pencil of a Hogarth,—about “to
become one flesh,” and so different in appearance. The lady, long-
visaged and wrinkled, stiff-backed and awkward, long as a maypole;
the bridegroom, jolly-faced like Bacchus, stumpy like an alder-tree,
and round as a beer-barrel.
Ere Friday had beheld its meridian sunshine, two carriages, drawn
up at the door, the drivers with white favours and Limerick gloves,
told the attentive world that Dr Redbeak had made them one flesh.
Shortly after the ceremony, the happy couple drove away amid the
cheering of an immense crowd of neighbours, who had planted
themselves round the door to make observations on what was going
on. Another coincidence worthy of remark also occurred on this
auspicious day. At the same hour, had the fair widow Martha yielded
up her lily-white hand to the whiskered, ferocious-looking, but
gallant Captain Thwackeray; and the carriages containing the
respective marriage-parties passed one another in the street at a
good round pace. The postilions, with their large flaunting ribbon-
knots, huzza’d in meeting, brandishing their whips in the air, as if
betokening individual victory. The captain looking out, saw Miss
Jenny, in maiden pride, sitting stately beside her chosen tobacconist;
and Daniel, glancing to the left, beheld Mrs Martha blushing by the
side of her moustachioed warrior. Both waved their hands in passing,
and pursued their destinies.—Janus; or, the Edinburgh Literary
Almanac.
 THE HAUNTED SHIPS.

By Allan Cunningham.
Though my mind’s not
Hoodwinked with rustic marvels, I do think
There are more things in the grove, the air, the flood,
Yea, and the charnelled earth, than what wise man,
Who walks so proud as if his form alone
Filled the wide temple of the universe,
Will let a frail mind say. I’d write i’ the creed
O’ the sagest head alive, that fearful forms,
Holy or reprobate, do page men’s heels;
That shapes, too horrid for our gaze, stand o’er
The murderer’s dust, and for revenge glare up,
Even till the stars weep fire for very pity.

Chapter I.
Along the sea of Solway—romantic on the Scottish side, with its
woodlands, its bays, its cliffs, and headlands; and interesting on the
English side, with its many beautiful towns with their shadows on
the water, rich pastures, safe harbours, and numerous ships—there
still linger many traditional stories of a maritime nature, most of
them connected with superstitions singularly wild and unusual. To
the curious, these tales afford a rich fund of entertainment, from the
many diversities of the same story; some dry and barren, and
stripped of all the embellishments of poetry; others dressed out in all
the riches of a superstitious belief and haunted imagination. In this
they resemble the inland traditions of the peasants; but many of the
oral treasures of the Galwegian or the Cumbrian coast have the
stamp of the Dane and the Norseman upon them, and claim but a
remote or faint affinity with the legitimate legends of Caledonia.
Something like a rude prosaic outline of several of the most noted of
the northern ballads—the adventures and depredations of the old
ocean kings—still lend life to the evening tale; and, among others, the
story of the Haunted Ships is still popular among the maritime
peasantry.
One fine harvest evening I went on board the shallop of Richard
Faulder, of Allanbay, and committing ourselves to the waters, we
allowed a gentle wind from the east to waft us at its pleasure towards
the Scottish coast. We passed the sharp promontory of Siddick, and
skirting the land within a stone-cast, glided along the shore till we
came within sight of the ruined Abbey of Sweetheart. The green
mountain of Criffell ascended beside us; and the bleat of the flocks
from its summit, together with the winding of the evening horn of
the reapers, came softened into something like music over land and
sea. We pushed our shallop into a deep and wooded bay, and sat
silently looking on the serene beauty of the place. The moon
glimmered in her rising through the tall shafts of the pines of
Caerlaverock; and the sky, with scarce a cloud, showered down on
wood, and headland, and bay, the twinkling beams of a thousand
stars, rendering every object visible. The tide, too, was coming with
that swift and silent swell observable when the wind is gentle; the
woody curves along the land were filling with the flood, till it touched
the green branches of the drooping trees; while in the centre current
the roll and the plunge of a thousand pellecks told to the experienced
fisherman that salmon were abundant.
As we looked, we saw an old man emerging from a path that
winded to the shore through a grove of doddered hazel; he carried a
halve-net on his back, while behind him came a girl bearing a small
harpoon, with which the fishers are remarkably dexterous in striking
their prey. The senior seated himself on a large gray stone, which
overlooked the bay, laid aside his bonnet, and submitted his bosom
and neck to the refreshing sea breeze; and taking his harpoon from
his attendant, sat with the gravity and composure of a spirit of the
flood, with his ministering nymph behind him. We pushed our
shallop to the shore, and soon stood at their side.
“This is old Mark Macmoran, the mariner, with his granddaughter
Barbara,” said Richard Faulder, in a whisper that had something of
fear in it; “he knows every creek, and cavern, and quicksand in
Solway,—has seen the Spectre Hound that haunts the Isle of Man;
has heard him bark, and at every bark has seen a ship sink; and he
has seen, too, the Haunted Ships in full sail; and, if all tales be true,
has sailed in them himself;—he’s an awful person.”
Though I perceived in the communication of my friend something
of the superstition of the sailor, I could not help thinking that
common rumour had made a happy choice in singling out old Mark
to maintain her intercourse with the invisible world. His hair, which
seemed to have refused all acquaintance with the comb, hung matted
upon his shoulders; a kind of mantle, or rather blanket, pinned with
a wooden skewer round his neck, fell mid-leg down, concealing all
his nether garments as far as a pair of hose, darned with yarn of all
conceivable colours, and a pair of shoes, patched and repaired till
nothing of the original structure remained, and clasped on his feet
with two massive silver buckles.
If the dress of the old man was rude and sordid, that of his
granddaughter was gay, and even rich.
She wore a boddice of fine wool, wrought round the bosom with
alternate leaf and lily, and a kirtle of the same fabric, which almost
touching her white and delicate ankle, showed her snowy feet, so
fairy-light and round that they scarcely seemed to touch the grass
where she stood. Her hair—a natural ornament which woman seeks
much to improve—was of a bright glossy brown, and encumbered
rather than adorned with a snood, set thick with marine productions,
among which the small clear pearl found in the Solway was
conspicuous. Nature had not trusted to a handsome shape, and a
sylph-like air, for young Barbara’s influence over the heart of man;
but had bestowed a pair of large bright blue eyes, swimming in liquid
light, so full of love, and gentleness, and joy, that all the sailors, from
Annanwater to far St Bees, acknowledged their power, and sung
songs about the bonnie lass of Mark Macmoran. She stood holding a
small gaff-hook of polished steel in her hand, and seemed not
dissatisfied with the glances I bestowed on her from time to time,
and which I held more than requited by a single glance of those eyes
which retained so many capricious hearts in subjection.
The tide, though rapidly augmenting, had not yet filled the bay at
our feet. The moon now streamed fairly over the tops of Caerlaverock
pines, and showed the expanse of ocean dimpling and swelling, on
which sloops and shallops came dancing, and displaying at every
turn their extent of white sail against the beam of the moon. I looked
on old Mark the Mariner, who, seated motionless on his gray stone,
kept his eye fixed on the increasing waters with a look of seriousness
and sorrow in which I saw little of the calculating spirit of a mere
fisherman. Though he looked on the coming tide, his eyes seemed to
dwell particularly on the black and decayed hulls of two vessels,
which, half immersed in the quicksand, still addressed to every heart
a tale of shipwreck and desolation. The tide wheeled and foamed
around them; and creeping inch by inch up the side, at last fairly
threw its waters over the top, and a long and hollow eddy showed the
resistance which the liquid element received.
The moment they were fairly buried in the water, the old man
clasped his hands together, and said—
“Blessed be the tide that will break over and bury ye for ever! Sad
to mariners, and sorrowful to maids and mothers, has the time been
you have choked up this deep and bonnie bay. For evil were you sent,
and for evil have you continued. Every season finds from you its song
of sorrow and wail, its funeral processions, and its shrouded corses.
Woe to the land where the wood grew that made ye? Cursed be the
axe that hewed ye on the mountains, the bands that joined ye
together, the bay that ye first swam in, and the wind that wafted ye
here! Seven times have ye put my life in peril; three fair sons have ye
swept from my side, and two bonnie grandbairns; and now, even
now, your waters foam and flash for my destruction, did I venture
my frail limbs in quest of food in your deadly bay. I see by that ripple
and that foam, and hear by the sound and singing of your surge, that
ye yearn for another victim, but it shall not be me or mine.”
Even as the old mariner addressed himself to the wrecked ships, a
young man appeared at the southern extremity of the bay, holding
his halve-net in his hand, and hastening into the current. Mark rose,
and shouted, and waved him back from a place which, to a person
unacquainted with the dangers of the bay, real and superstitious,
seemed sufficiently perilous: his granddaughter, too, added her voice
to his, and waved her white hands; but the more they strove the
faster advanced the peasant, till he stood to his middle in the water,
while the tide increased every moment in depth and strength.
“Andrew, Andrew!” cried the young woman, in a voice quavering
with emotion, “turn, turn, I tell you. O the ships, the haunted ships!”
But the appearance of a fine run of fish had more influence with the
peasant than the voice of bonnie Barbara, and forward he dashed,
net in hand. In a moment he was borne off his feet, and mingled like
foam with the water, and hurried towards the fatal eddies which
whirled and reared round the sunken ships. But he was a powerful
young man, and an expert swimmer: he seized on one of the
projecting ribs of the nearest hulk, and clinging to it with the grasp of
despair, uttered yell after yell, sustaining himself against the
prodigious rush of the current.
From a sheiling of turf and straw within the pitch of a bar from the
spot where we stood, came out an old woman bent with age, and
leaning on a crutch. “I heard the voice of that lad Andrew Lammie;
can the chield be drowning, that he skirls sae uncannily?” said the
old woman, seating herself on the ground and looking earnestly at
the water. “Ou ay,” she continued, “he’s doomed, he’s doomed; heart
and hand never can save him; boats, ropes, and man’s strength and
wit, all vain! vain! he’s doomed, he’s doomed!”
By this time I had thrown myself into the shallop, followed
reluctantly by Richard Faulder, over whose courage and kindness of
heart superstition had great power; and with one push from the
shore, and some exertion in sculling, we came within a quoit-cast of
the unfortunate fisherman. He stayed not to profit by our aid; for
when he perceived us near, he uttered a piercing shriek of joy, and
bounded toward us through the agitated element the full length of an
oar. I saw him for a second on the surface of the water; but the
eddying current sucked him down; and all I ever beheld of him again
was his hand held above the flood, and clutching in agony at some
imaginary aid. I sat gazing in horror on the vacant sea before us; but
a breathing-time before, a human being, full of youth, and strength,
and hope, was there: his cries were still ringing in my ears, and
echoing in the woods; and now nothing was seen or heard save the
turbulent expanse of water, and the sound of its chafing on the
shores. We pushed back our shallop, and resumed our station on the
cliff beside the old mariner and his descendant.
“Wherefore sought ye to peril your own lives fruitlessly,” said
Mark, “in attempting to save the doomed? Whoso touches these
infernal ships never survives to tell the tale. Woe to the man who is
found nigh them at midnight when the tide has subsided, and they
arise in their former beauty, with forecastle, and deck, and sail, and
pennon, and shroud! Then is seen the streaming of lights along the
water from their cabin windows, and then is heard the sound of
mirth and the clamour of tongues and the infernal whoop and halloo,
and song, ringing far and wide. Woe to the man who comes nigh
them!”
To all this my companion listened with a breathless attention. I felt
something touched with a superstition to which I partly believed I
had seen one victim offered up; and I inquired of the old mariner—
“How and when came these haunted ships there? To me they seem
but the melancholy relics of some unhappy voyagers, and much more
likely to warn people to shun destruction, than entice and delude
them to it.”
“And so,” said the old man with a smile, which had more of sorrow
in it than of mirth; “and so, young man, these black and shattered
hulks seem to the eye of the multitude. But things are not what they
seem: that water, a kind and convenient servant to the wants of man,
which seems so smooth, and so dimpling, and so gentle, has
swallowed up a human soul even now; and the place which it covers,
so fair and so level, is a faithless quicksand out of which none escape.
Things are otherwise than they seem. Had you lived as long as I have
had the sorrow to live; had you seen the storms, and braved the
perils, and endured the distresses which have befallen me; had you
sat gazing out on the dreary ocean at midnight on a haunted coast;
had you seen comrade after comrade, brother after brother, and son
after son, swept away by the merciless ocean from your very side;
had you seen the shapes of friends, doomed to the wave and the
quicksand, appearing to you in the dreams and visions of the night;
then would your mind have been prepared for crediting the strange
legends of mariners; and the two haunted Danish ships would have
had their terrors for you, as they have for all who sojourn on this
coast.
“Of the time and cause of their destruction,” continued the old
man, “I know nothing certain; they have stood as you have seen them
for uncounted time; and while all other ships wrecked on this
unhappy coast have gone to pieces, and rotted, and sunk away in a
few years, these two haunted hulks have neither sunk in the
quicksand, nor has a single spar or board been displaced. Maritime
legend says, that two ships of Denmark having had permission, for a
time, to work deeds of darkness and dolour on the deep, were at last
condemned to the whirlpool and the sunken rock, and were wrecked
in this bonnie bay, as a sign to seamen to be gentle and devout. The
night when they were lost was a harvest evening of uncommon
mildness and beauty: the sun had newly set; the moon came brighter
and brighter out; and the reapers, laying their sickles at the root of
the standing corn, stood on rock and bank, looking at the increasing
magnitude of the waters, for sea and land were visible from St Bees
to Barnhourie.
“The sails of the two vessels were soon seen bent for the Scottish
coast; and with a speed outrunning the swiftest ship, they
approached the dangerous quicksands and headland of Borranpoint.
On the deck of the foremost ship not a living soul was seen, or shape,
unless something in darkness and form resembling a human shadow
could be called a shape, which flitted from extremity to extremity of
the ship, with the appearance of trimming the sails, and directing the
vessel’s course. But the decks of its companion were crowded with
human shapes; the captain, and mate, and sailor, and cabin boy, all
seemed there; and from them the sound of mirth and minstrelsy
echoed over land and water. The coast which they skirted along was
one of extreme danger; and the reapers shouted to warn them to
beware of sandbank and rock; but of this friendly counsel no notice
was taken, except that a large and famished dog, which sat on the
prow, answered every shout with a long, loud, and melancholy howl.
The deep sandbank of Carsethorn was expected to arrest the career
of these desperate navigators; but they passed, with the celerity of
waterfowl, over an obstruction which had wrecked many pretty
ships.
“Old men shook their heads, and departed, saying, ‘We have seen
the fiend sailing in a bottomless ship; let us go home and pray:’ but
one young and wilful man said, ‘Fiend! I’ll warrant it’s nae fiend, but
douce Janet Withershins, the witch, holding a carouse with some of
her Cumberland cummers, and mickle red wine will be spilt atween
them. ’Od, I would gladly have a toothfu’! I’ll warrant it’s nane o’
your cauld sour slae-water, like a bottle of Bailie Skrinkie’s port, but
right drap-o’-my-heart’s-blood stuff, that would waken a body out of
their last linen. I wonder whaur the cummers will anchor their craft?’
“‘And I’ll vow,’ said another rustic, ‘the wine they quaff is none of
your visionary drink, such as a drouthy body has dished out to his
lips in a dream; nor is it shadowy and unsubstantial, like the vessels
they sail in, which are made out of a cockle-shell, or a cast-off
slipper, or the paring of a seaman’s right thumb-nail. I once got a
handsel out of a witch’s quaigh myself;—auld Marion Mathers of
Dustiefoot, whom they tried to bury in the old kirkyard of Dunscore;
but the cummer raise as fast as they laid her down, and naewhere
else would she lie but in the bonnie green kirkyard of Kier, among
douce and sponsible folk. So I’ll vow that the wine of a witch’s cup is
as fell liquor as ever did a kindly turn to a poor man’s heart; and be
they fiends, or be they witches, if they have red wine asteer, I’ll risk a
droukit sark for ae glorious tout on’t.’
“‘Silence, ye sinners,’ said the minister’s son of a neighbouring
parish, who united in his own person his father’s lack of devotion
with his mother’s love of liquor. ‘Whisht! Speak as if ye had the fear
of something holy before ye. Let the vessels run their own way to
destruction: who can stay the eastern wind, and the current of the
Solway sea? I can find ye Scripture warrant for that: so let them try
their strength on Blawhooly rocks, and their might on the broad
quicksand. There’s a surf running there would knock the ribs
together of a galley built by the imps of the pit, and commanded by
the Prince of Darkness. Bonnily and bravely they sail away there; but
before the blast blows by they’ll be wrecked; and red wine and strong
brandy will be as rife as dykewater, and we’ll drink the health of
bonnie Bell Blackness out of her left foot slipper.’
“The speech of the young profligate was applauded by several of
his companions, and away they flew to the bay of Blawhooly, from
whence they never returned. The two vessels were observed all at
once to stop in the bosom of the bay, on the spot where their hulls
now appear: the mirth and the minstrelsy waxed louder than ever;
and the forms of the maidens, with instruments of music and wine-
cups in their hands, thronged the decks. A boat was lowered; and the
same shadowy pilot who conducted the ships made it start towards
the shore with the rapidity of lightning, and its head knocked against
the bank where the four young men stood, who longed for the
unblest drink. They leaped in with a laugh, and with a laugh were
they welcomed on deck; wine cups were given to each, and as they
raised them to their lips the vessels melted away beneath their feet;
and one loud shriek, mingled with laughter still louder, was heard
over land and water for many miles. Nothing more was heard or seen
till the morning, when the crowd who came to the beach saw with
fear and wonder the two Haunted Ships, such as they now seem,
masts and tackle gone; nor mark, nor sign, by which their name,
country, or destination, could be known, was left remaining. Such is
the tradition of the mariners.”
 Chapter II.
“And trow ye,” said the old woman, who, attracted from her hut by
the drowning cries of the young fisherman, had remained an auditor
of the mariner’s legend; “and trow ye, Mark Macmoran, that the tale
of the Haunted Ships is done? I can say no to that. Mickle have my
ears heard, but more mine eyes have witnessed since I came to dwell
in this humble home by the side of the deep sea. I mind the night
weel: it was on Hallow-e’en, the nuts were cracked, and the apples
were eaten, and spell and charm were tried at my fireside; till,
wearied with diving into the dark waves of futurity, the lads and
lasses fairly took to the more visible blessings of kind words, tender
clasps, and gentle courtship.
“Soft words in a maiden’s ear, and a kindly kiss o’ her lip, were old
world matters to me, Mark Macmoran; though I mean not to say that
I have been free of the folly of daundering and daffin’ with a youth in
my day, and keeping tryst with him in dark and lonely places.
However, as I say, these times of enjoyment were past and gone with
me; the mair’s the pity that pleasure should flee sae fast away,—and
as I couldna make sport I thought I would not mar any; so out I
sauntered into the fresh cold air, and sat down behind that old oak,
and looked abroad on the wide sea. I had my ain sad thoughts, ye
may think, at the time; it was in that very bay my blythe gudeman
perished, with seven more in his company; and on that very bank
where ye see the waves leaping and foaming, I saw seven stately
corses streeked, but the dearest was the eighth. It was a woful sight
to me, a widow, with four bonnie boys, with nought to support them
but these twa hands, and God’s blessing, and a cow’s grass. I have
never liked to live out of sight of this bay since that time; and mony’s
the moonlight night I sit looking on these watery mountains, and
these waste shores; it does my heart good, whatever it may do to my
head. So ye see it was Hallow-e’en; and looking on sea and land sat I;
and my heart wandering to other thoughts soon made me forget my
youthful company at hame. It might be near the howe hour of the
night; the tide was making, and its singing brought strange old-world
stories with it; and I thought on the dangers that sailors endure, the