The natives concluded it was a bad omen for the owner, and his death, which followed within a few years, confirmed them in their opinion. Martin gives no names beyond the master's and offers no explanation of his own. Bernera in this passage is the Berneray in the Sound of Harris, home of Sir Norman Macleod, whom Martin knew.
The tale is told in Martin's section on Harris with several other omens and cures, and is typical of the way later events were read back onto a birth.
Comments