“Fools are aye fleet and fain,” said Swertha.
“Fey folk run fast,” added the Ranzelman; “and the thing that we are born to, we cannot win by.—I have known them that tried to stop folk that were fey. You have heard of Helen Emberson of Camsey, how she stopped all the boles and windows about the house, that her gudeman might not see daylight, and rise to the Haaf-fishing, because she feared foul weather; and how the boat he should have sailed in was lost in the Roost; and how she came back, rejoicing in her gudeman’s safety—but ne’er may care, for there she found him drowned in his own masking-fat, within the wa’s of his ain biggin; and moreover”——
But here Swertha reminded the Ranzelman that he must go down to the haven to get off the fishing-boats; “for both that my heart is sair for the
