He slumped down further in the chair, wincing as his bad leg moved on the creepie-stool. And then, to my astonishment, he fixed me with his eye and said, Hearken now, quinie, an’ I’ll tell ye a thing.

The sea is a witch, a witch an’ a mother. With a hand of plenty when she has a mind to be kindly an’ a curse when she don’t. She can sing a mannie to his death. To his death, d’ye hear? Aye, that’s true, quinie!

And Granda checked my face for signs of doubt.

Aye, true as the tide. True as God. I seen it with my own eyes.

Granda settled back a wee shrug.

I seen her take young Tullie’s Mickel, long time back, on the Kittiwake. Was a north wind howlin’ all the long night, blastin’ at our backs as we hauled in the linies, an’ I could hear the trill of the Witch in it, all of us could, an’ we huffed a wee bit louder as we pulled on the linies, an’ stamped our boots against the cold, an’ tugged the wool snug upon our ears—all to keep the lurin’ song away from our minds. But that young Tullie’s Mickel, he didn’t know the sound maybe, he didn’t take the care he ought. No, an’ he was doomed, that boy. A goner.

Granda was not looking at me any more. His eyes were on the door of the but and I fancied they could see through the slats of wood worn smooth and shiny by mittened hands, beyond the houses on the other side of Tiller Street, beyond the street too, and way on down to the boatie shore and the witchy sea that sings from the depths and can make a boy a goner.

All the night that laddie let her in, he let his blood cool to the bewitchin’ song, an’ come the morning, when all the howl had died from the wind an’ the edge of the sky was lit, d’ye know what that loon did? Eh?

He was looking at me again. I shook my head.

He goes an’ takes a ballast stone under each skinny elbow an’ he runs. ‘Here I go!’ That’s what he cried, that daftie loon. ‘Here I go!’, all cheerful like, an’ splash, straight into the Witch’s arms, sunk an’ gone. Befuddled to his death by her song.

Granda was out of breath now but his eyes were popping bright, daring me to disbelieve.

Just think on it, quinie, next time ye’re bletherin’ about at school with Musical Drill. Just mind what I tell ye about poor Tullie’s Mickel an’ what happened when he let music into his head. Nothing good, eh. No good can come from music!