a moderate breeze, and the rest of the voyage was neither rough nor unprosperous; but the shipmaster, it was said, religiously determined never again to purchase a wind. And the Cromarty men, who had heard the story, were so much of the master’s opinion, that it was not until the second week after the wind had set so stiffly into the south-west, and when all their provisions were expended, that they resolved on risking a visit to _Stine Bheag_. One of them, a tall robust young fellow, named Macglashan, accompanied by two others, after collecting all the placks and boddles of the party--little pieces of copper coin, with the head of Charles II. on one side, and the Scotch thistle on the other--set out for the hovel of the witch. It was situated on the shore of a little sandy bay, which opens into the Dornoch Firth, and formed one of a range, four in number, three of which were now deserted. The roof of one had fallen in; the two others, with their doors ajar, the casements of the windows bleached white by the sea winds, and with wreaths of chickweed mantling over the sloping sides, and depending from the eaves, seemed very dwellings of desolation. From the door and window of the inhabited hovel, which joined to the one which had fallen, and which in appearance was as ruinous and weather-beaten as either of the other two, there issued dense volumes of smoke, accompanied by a heavy oppressive scent, occasioned apparently by the combustion of some marine vegetable. The range had been inhabited about ten years before by a crew of fishermen and their families; one of them the husband, another the son of _Stine Bheag_. The son had unluckily chanced to come upon her when she was engaged in some of her orgies, and telling his father of what he had seen, they deliberated together, it was said, on delating her as a witch before the presbytery of Tain; but ere they came to a full determination they unluckily went to sea. _Stine_ was not idle;--there arose a terrible hurricane, and the boat was driven on a quicksand, where she was swallowed up with all her crew. The widows, disturbed by supernatural sights and noises, deserted their cottages soon after, and _Stine Bheag_ became the sole tenant of the range.