my favourite was the lay of Sir Patrick Spens, for he was both a knight and a sailor. “The king sits in Dunfermline town, Drinking the blude-red wine, O whare will I get a skeely skipper To sail this ship of mine? “Then up and spake an eldern knight, Sat at the king’s right knee, Sir Patrick Spens is the best sailor That ever sailed the sea.” Oh, I can yet hear my father’s strong voice rising over the dash of the water and the moan of the wind, as he sung the brave voyage of Sir Patrick to Norroway, to bring home the king’s daughter; but his tones would sink and grow hoarse and low, when he chanted the storm, and the perishing of all the fair company on the voyage home. “O forty mile off Aberdeen ’Tis fifty fathom deep, And there lies gude Sir Patrick Spens, Wi’ the Scots lords at his feet.” My father’s long home was also the bottom of the sea. One wild March day, the coble left Kirk Leslie pier without me. I staid at home mending a dredge-net with my mother. The easterly har was on the coast, that is to say, thick cold mists and a keen wind. As the sun rose high so did the tempest; we could see nought seaward, for the grey fog was out upon the water, but every wave came white, over and over the pier, from end to end. My mother went to and fro, wan, and praying to herself; as indeed did many another fisher-wife, for they had great cause. The night was awful. I sat cowering beside my mother, who was rocking herself on a settle with her apron over her head; or now and then stole down to the beach, to where men stood with lanterns upon masts to show the harbour mouth to the poor folks at sea. Three boats, with crews pale and worn, made the land before the day; an hour after dawn our coble came tossing to the outside belt of the surf—but she was bottom upwards. In a month after this, my mother and I went to her father’s, a very old man, and a reverend elder of the kirk. He sent me to school to Dominie Buchanan, a learned carle, who by his own account behoved to be of the race of the great Geordie Buchanan, of whom they tell merry tales, which surely are idle and false, for he was a severe, grave man, and handled the tawse unmercifully, as his royal pupil, gentle King Jamie, could in his time well testify. At school I was diligent, and pleased master and friends.