Craig lept into their craft; one or two even into the water, whilst others crept as close to the verge of the pier as they could, leaving a thoroughfare--wide as “the broad path of honour,”--to the Infernal Cancer. To do him justice, he straddled along with a very unaffected unconsciousness of his own evil importance. He seemed to have no aim higher than salt water and sand, and had accomplished half the distance towards them, when a little decrepit poor old sea-roamer, generally known as “Creel Katie,” made a dexterous snatch at a hind claw, and before the Crab-Devil was aware, deposited him in her patchwork apron, with an “Hech, Sirs, what for are ye gaun to let gang siccan a braw partane?” In vain a hundred voices shouted out, “Let him bide, Katie,--he’s no cannie;” fish or fiend, the resolute old dame kept a fast clutch of her prize, promising him, moreover, a comfortable simmer in the mickle pat, for the benefit of herself and that “puir silly body the gudeman:” and she kept her word. Before night the poor Devil was dressed in his shell, to the infinite horror of all her neighbours. Some even said that a black figure, with horns, and wings, and hoofs, and forky tail, in fact old Clooty himself, had been seen to fly out of the chimney. Others said that unwholesome and unearthly smells, as of pitch and brimstone, had reeked forth from the abominable thing, through door and window. Creel Kate, however, persisted, aye, even to her dying day and on her deathbed, that the Crab was as sweet a Crab as ever was supped on; and that it recovered her old husband out of a very poor low way,--adding, “And that was a thing, ye ken, the Deil a Deil in the Dub of Darkness wad hae dune for siccan a gude man, and kirk-going Christian body, as my ain douce Davie.” A BLIND MAN Is a Blackamoor turned outside in. His skin is fair, but his lining is utter dark; his eyes are like shotten stars,--mere jellies; or like mock-painted windows since the tax upon daylight: what his mind’s eye can be, is yet a mystery with the learned, or if he hath a mental capacity at all--for, “out of sight is out of mind.” Wherever he stands, he is antipodean, with his midnight to your noon. The brightest sunshine serves only to make him the gloomier object; like a dark house at a general illumination. When he stirs, it is like a Venetian blind, being pulled up and down by a string; he is a human kettle tied to a dog’s tail, and with much of the same tin twang in his tone. With botanists he is a species of solanum, or night-shade, whereof the berries are in his eyes;--amongst painters he is only contemned, for his ignorance of clare-obscure; but by musicians marvelled at for playing, ante-sight, on an invisible fiddle. He stands against a wall with his two blank orbs, like a figure in high relief, howbeit but seldom relieved; and though he is fond of getting pence, yet he is confessedly blind to his own interest. [Illustration: A MISGUIDED MAN.]