at Leith, he's in mair danger than a prudent mon could wish. Ay! he's by
the big rock that shows his head when the tide runs low, but it's no
mortal man who can steer long in the road he's journeying and not
speedily find land wi' water a-top o't."

The little schooner, however, still held her way among the rocks and
sand-pits, making such slight deviations in her course as proved her to
be under the direction of one who knew his danger, until she entered as
far into the bay as prudence could at all justify, when her canvas was
gathered into folds, seemingly without the agency of hands, and the
vessel, after rolling for a few minutes on the long billows that hove in
from the ocean, swung round in the currents of the tide, and was held by
her anchor.

The peasants now began to make their conjectures more freely concerning
the character and object of their visitor; some intimating that she was
engaged in contraband trade, and others that her views were hostile, and
her business war. A few dark hints were hazarded on the materiality of
her construction, for nothing of artificial formation, it was urged,
would be ventured by men in such a dangerous place, at a time when even
the most inexperienced landsman was enabled to foretell the certain
gale. The Scotchman, who, to all the sagacity of his countrymen, added
no small portion of their superstition, leaned greatly to the latter
conclusion, and had begun to express this sentiment warily with
reverence, when the child of Erin, who appeared not to possess any very
definite ideas on the subject interrupted him, by exclaiming:

"Faith! there's two of them! a big and a little! sure the bogles of the
saa likes good company the same as any other Christians!"