"Ay--you'll see no bastards then!"

"Worse--may be--worse!" muttered the Fisher, sinking into abstraction,
and glaring wildly on the flickering embers before him.

"Why, how's this?" said the stranger. "Are your senses playing bo-peep
with the ghost of some pigeon-livered coast captain, eh? Come, take
another pull at the keg, to clear your head-lights, and tell us a bit
of your ditty."

The Fisher took another draught, and proceeded--

"About five-and-twenty years ago, a stranger came to this hut--may the
curse of God annihilate him!--"

"Amen to that," said the young man.

"He brought with him a boy and a girl, a purse of gold, and ---- the
arch fiend's tongue, to tempt me! Well, it was to take these children
out to sea--upset the boat--and lose them!"--

"And you did so!" interrupted the stranger.

"I tried--but listen. On a fine evening, I took them out: the sun sunk
rapidly, and I knew by the freshening of the breeze, there would be a
storm. I was not mistaken. It came on even faster than I wished. The
children were alarmed--the boy, in particular, grew suspicious; he
insisted that I had an object in going out so far at sun-set. This
irritated me,--and I rose to smite him, when the fair girl interposed