seen. The father and one of the lads disappeared for ever; but the
younger boy clung, with extraordinary resolution, to the inverted
vessel. By accident, the Warlock Fisher came to the door of his hovel,
saw the drowning lad, and plunged instantaneously into the sea. For
some minutes he was invisible amid the angry turmoil; but he swam like
an inhabitant of that fearful element, and bore the boy in safety to
the beach. From fatigue or fear, or the effects of both united, the
poor lad died shortly afterwards; and his grateful relatives
industriously insisted, that he had been blighted in the grasp of his
unhallowed rescuer!

Towards the end of autumn, the weather frequently becomes so broken
and stormy in these parts, as to render the sustenance derived from
fishing extremely precarious. Against this, however, the Warlock
Fisher was provided; for, caring little for weather, and apparently
less for life, he went out in all seasons, and was known to be absent
for days, during the most violent storms, when every hope of seeing
him again was lost. Still nothing harmed him: he came drifting back
again, the same wayward, unfearing, unhallowed animal. To account for
this, it was understood that he was in connexion with smugglers; that
his days of absence were spent in their service--in reconnoitring for
their safety, and assisting their predations. Whatever of truth there
might be in this, it was well known that the Warlock Fisher never
wanted ardent spirits; and so free was he in their use and of tobacco,
that he has been heard, in a long and dreary winter's evening,
carolling songs in a strange tongue, with all the fervour of an
inspired bacchanal. It has been said, too, at such times he held
strange talk with some who never answered, deprecated sights which no
one else could see, and exhibited the fury of an outrageous maniac.