hanging in elf-locks about his ears and shoulders, together with the perpetual sullenness which seemed native in the expression of features neither regular nor pleasing, gave him an appearance unendurably disgusting.  He lived alone, in a hovel of his own construction, partially scooped out of a rock—­was never known to have suffered a visitor within its walls—­to have spoken a kind word, or done a kind action.  Once, indeed, he performed an act which, in a less ominous being, would have been lauded as the extreme of heroism.  In a dreadfully stormy morning, a fishing-boat was seen in great distress, making for the shore—­there were a father and two sons in it.  The danger became imminent, as they neared the rocky promontory of the fisher—­and the boat upset.  Women and boys were screaming and gesticulating from the beach, in all the wild and useless energy of despair, but assistance was nowhere to be 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.