The Merry Men | Page 3

with it, is more than I
can tell.
The truth is, that in a south-westerly wind, that part of our archipelago
is no better than a trap. If a ship got through the reefs, and weathered
the Merry Men, it would be to come ashore on the south coast of Aros,
in Sandag Bay, where so many dismal things befell our family, as I
propose to tell. The thought of all these dangers, in the place I knew so
long, makes me particularly welcome the works now going forward to
set lights upon the headlands and buoys along the channels of our
iron-bound, inhospitable islands.

The country people had many a story about Aros, as I used to hear from
my uncle's man, Rorie, an old servant of the Macleans, who had
transferred his services without afterthought on the occasion of the
marriage. There was some tale of an unlucky creature, a sea- kelpie,
that dwelt and did business in some fearful manner of his own among
the boiling breakers of the Roost. A mermaid had once met a piper on
Sandag beach, and there sang to him a long, bright midsummer's night,
so that in the morning he was found stricken crazy, and from
thenceforward, till the day he died, said only one form of words; what
they were in the original Gaelic I cannot tell, but they were thus
translated: 'Ah, the sweet singing out of the sea.' Seals that haunted on
that coast have been known to speak to man in his own tongue,
presaging great disasters. It was here that a certain saint first landed on
his voyage out of Ireland to convert the Hebrideans. And, indeed, I
think he had some claim to be called saint; for, with the boats of that
past age, to make so rough a passage, and land on such a ticklish coast,
was surely not far short of the miraculous. It was to him, or to some of
his monkish underlings who had a cell there, that the islet owes its holy
and beautiful name, the House of God.
Among these old wives' stories there was one which I was inclined to
hear with more credulity. As I was told, in that tempest which scattered
the ships of the Invincible Armada over all the north and west of
Scotland, one great vessel came ashore on Aros, and before the eyes of
some solitary people on a hill-top, went down in a moment with all
hands, her colours flying even as she sank. There was some likelihood
in this tale; for another of that fleet lay sunk on the north side, twenty
miles from Grisapol. It was told, I thought, with more detail and gravity
than its companion stories, and there was one particularity which went
far to convince me of its truth: the name, that is, of the ship was still
remembered, and sounded, in my ears, Spanishly. The ESPIRITO
SANTO they called it, a great ship of many decks of guns, laden with
treasure and grandees of Spain, and fierce soldadoes, that now lay
fathom deep to all eternity, done with her wars and voyages, in Sandag
bay, upon the west of Aros. No more salvos of ordnance for that tall
ship, the 'Holy Spirit,' no more fair winds or happy ventures; only to rot
there deep in the sea-tangle and hear the shoutings of the Merry Men as

the tide ran high about the island. It was a strange thought to me first
and last, and only grew stranger as I learned the more of Spain, from
which she had set sail with so proud a company, and King Philip, the
wealthy king, that sent her on that voyage.
And now I must tell you, as I walked from Grisapol that day, the
ESPIRITO SANTO was very much in my reflections. I had been
favourably remarked by our then Principal in Edinburgh College, that
famous writer, Dr. Robertson, and by him had been set to work on
some papers of an ancient date to rearrange and sift of what was
worthless; and in one of these, to my great wonder, I found a note of
this very ship, the ESPIRITO SANTO, with her captain's name, and
how she carried a great part of the Spaniard's treasure, and had been
lost upon the Ross of Grisapol; but in what particular spot, the wild
tribes of that place and period would give no information to the king's
inquiries. Putting one thing with another, and taking our island tradition
together with this note of old King Jamie's perquisitions after wealth, it
had come strongly on my mind that the spot for which he sought in
vain could be no other than the small bay of Sandag on my uncle's land;
and being a