Yet he could not help pitying her, and when the dumb thing looked up in his face, and her cheeks all moist with tears, 'twas enough to make any one feel, let alone Dick, who had ever and always like most of his countrymen, a mighty tender heart of his own. "Don't cry, my darling," said Dick Fitzgerald, but the Merrow, like any bold child, only cried the more for that. Dick sat himself down by her side, and took hold of her hand, by way of comforting her. 'Twas in no particular an ugly hand, only there was a small web between the fingers, as there is in a duck's foot, but 'twas as thin and as white as the skin between egg and shell. What is your name, my darling?" says Dick, thinking to make her conversant with him, but he got no answer, and he was certain, sure now, either that she could not speak, or did not understand him, he therefore squeezed her hand in his, as the only way he had of talking to her. It's the universal language; and there's not a woman in the world be she fish or lady, that does not understand it. The Merrow did not seem much displeased at this mode of conversation; and, making an end of her whining all at once, -"Man," says she, looking up in Dick Fitzgerald's face, "Man, will you eat me?" "By all the red petticoats, and check aprons between Dingle and Tralee," cried Dick, jumping up in amazement, "I'd as soon eat myself, my jewel! Is it I eat you my pet?-Now 'twas some ugly looking thief of a fish put that notion in your own pretty head, with the nice green hair down upon it, that is so cleanly combed out this morning!" "Man," said the Merrow, what will you do with me, if you won't eat me ?" Dick's thoughts were running on a wife, he saw, at the first glimpse, that she was handsome; but since she spoke, and spoke too like any real woman, he was fairly in love with her. 'Twas the neat way she called him man, that settled the matter entirely. 66 Fish," says Dick, trying to speak to her after her own short fashion, "fish," says he," here's my word, fresh and fasting, for you this blessed morning, that I'll make you mistress Fitzgerald before all the world, and that's what I'll do." "Never say the word twice," says she, "I am ready and willing to be yours Mister Fitzgerald, but stop if you please, till I twist up my hair." It was sometime before she had settled it entirely to her liking; for she guessed I suppose, that she was going among strangers, where she would be looked at, when that was done, the Merrow put the comb in her pocket, and then bent down her head and whispered some words to the water that was close at the foot of the rock. Dick saw the murmur of the words upon the top of the sea, going towards the wide ocean, just like a breath of wind ripling along, and says he, in the greatest wonder, "Is it speaking, you are, my darling to the salt water?" "It's nothing else," says she quite care lessly, "I'm just sending word home to my father, not to be waiting breakfast for me; just to keep him from being uneasy in his mind." "And who is your father, my duck," says Dick. "did you What!" said the Merrow, never hear of my father? he is the King of the waves to be sure !" "And yourself then, is a real King's daughter?" said Dick, opening his two eyes to take a full and true survey of his wife that was to be. "Oh, I'm nothing else but a made man with you, and a King your father; to be sure he has all the money that's down in the bottom of the sea!" 66 Money," repeated the Merrow, "what's money?" ""Tis no bad thing to have when one wants it," replied Dick, " and may be now the fishes have the understanding to bring up whatever you bid them." "Oh yes," said the Merrow, bring me what I want." 66 they "To speak the truth then," said Dick, "'tis a straw bed I have at home before you, and that I'm thinking, is no-ways fitting for a king's daughter, so if 'twould not be displeasing to you just to mention, a nice feather bed, with a pair of new blankets, but what am I talking about? may be you have not such things as beds down under the water ?" "By all means," said she, "Mr. Fitzgerald-plenty of beds at your service. I've fourteen oyster beds of my own, not to mention one just planting for the rearing of young ones.' "You have," says Dick, scratching his head and looking a little puzzled. ""Tis a feather bed I was speaking of-but clearly, your's is the very cut of a decent plan, to have bed, and supper so handy to each other, that a person when they'd have the one, need never ask for the other." However, bed or no bed, money or no money, Dick Fitzgerald determined to marry the Merrow, and the Merrow had given her consent. Away they went, therefore, across the Strand, from Gollerus to Ballinrunnig, where Father Fitzgibbon happened to be that morning. There are two words to this bargain, Dick Fitzgerald," said his reverence looking mighty glum. "And is it a fishy woman you'd marry?-the Lord preserve us !Send the scaly creature home to her own people, that's my advice to you, where ever she came from." Dick had the cohuleen driuth in his hand, and was about to give it back to the Merrow, who looked covetously at it, but he thought for a moment, and then, says he "Please your Reverence, she's a king's daughter." "If she was as mild and as beautiful as the sun, moon, and stars, all put together, I tell you, Dick Fitzgerald,” said the Priest, stamping his right foot, "you can't marry her, she being a fish!" "But she has all the gold that's down in the sea only for the asking, and I'm a made man if I marry her; and," said Dick looking up slily, "I can make it worth any one's while to do the job." Oh! that alters the case entirely," replied the Priest, "why there's some reason now in what you say, why didn't you tell me this before?-marry her by all means, if she was ten times a fish, Money, you know, is not to be refused in these bad times, and I may as well have the hansel of it as another, that may be would not take half the pains in counselling you that I have done." So Father Fitzgibbon married Dick Fitzgerald to the Merrow, and like any loving couple they returned to Gollerus, well pleased with each other. Every thing prospered with Dick-he was at the sunny side of the world; the Merrow made the best of wives, and they lived together in the greatest contentment. It was wonderful to see, considering where she had been brought up, how she would busy herself about the house, and how well she nursed the children; for, at the end of three years, there were as many young Fitzgeralds two boys and a girl. In short, Dick was a happy man, and so he might have continued to the end of his days, if he had only the sense to take proper care of what he had got; many another man, however, beside Dick, has not had wit enough to do that. One day when Dick was obliged to go to Tralee, he left the wife minding the children at home, after him, and thinking she had plenty to do without disturbing his fishing tackle. Dick was no sooner gone, than Mrs. Fitzgerald set about cleaning up the house and chancing to pull down a fishing net, what should she find behind it in a hole in the wall, but her cohuleen driuth. She took it out and looked at it, and then she thought of her father the king, and her mother the queen, and her brothers and sisters, and she felt a longing to go back to them. She sat down on a little stool, and thought over the happy days she had spent under the sea; then she looked at her children, and thought on the love and affection of poor Dick, and how it would break his heart to lose her. "But," says she," he wont lose me entirely, for I'll come back to him again; and who can blame me for going to see my father and my mother, after being so long away from them." She got up and went towards the door, but came back again to look once more at the child that was sleeping in the crad'e. She kissed it gently, and as she kissed it, a tear trembled for an instant in her eye, and then fell on its rosy cheek. She wiped away the tear, and turning to the eldest little girl, told her to take good care of her brothers, and to be a good child herself, until she came back. The Merrow then went down to the strand. The sea was lying calm and smooth, just heaving and glittering in the sun, and she thought she heard a faint sweet singing, inviting her to come down. All her old ideas and feelings came floating over her mind, Dick and her children were at the instant forgotten, and placing the cohuleen driuth on her head, she plunged in. He Dick came home in the evening, and missing his wife, he asked Kathelin, his little girl, what had become of her mother, but she could not tell him. then inquired of the neighbours, and he learnt that she was seen going towards the strand with a strange looking thing like a cocked hat in her hand. He returned to his cabin in search for the cohuleen driuth. It was gone, and the truth now flashed upon him. Year after year did Dick Fitzgerald wait expecting the return of his wife, but he never saw her more. Dick never married again, always thinking that the Merrow would sooner or later return to him, and nothing could ever persuade him but that her father the king kept her below by main force; "For," said Dick, she surely would not of herself give up her husband and her children." While she was with him, she was a good wife in every respect, that to this day she is spoken of in the tradition of the country, as the pattern for one, under the name of THE LADY OF GOLLERUS. -Fairy Legends and Traditions. TO MARY ON OUR BRIDAL MORNING. Mary! yet the morn is young, And the early lark, as he sails along, Tells to thee and me, Mary! Than the nearing banquets revelry, Ere the sluggard, Luxury, Recluse from morn's domain, Arms entwined, a heart that glows We'll rove where first thy cherished vows Time, our tardy pilot, now Descries the bourne of bliss, The urchin god unbends his bow, It shall end, when life is done, Mary! Say why peeps in thine eye that tear, Could guile its heartless tenure hold, Or, was thy love decayed, Mary? I'd bid thee go thy way, Mary! I fear it not, I know the tear I'D BE A POETESS. BY H. BRANDRETH, JUN. Author of Field Flowers, &c. Id be a poetess gifted with song, Like are WHAT a singular and solitary life these Gipsies lead! How uncultivated and antisocial they are! And to what voluntary hardships they are exposed! bees, they have their monarchs, like bees they haunt the fields, but their princely usages are opposed to real good, and are oppositely different to the virtuous insects of honey and wing. It is a vulgar and mistaken notion that Gipsies live on animals which die naturally, and supported by the means of begging; they are adepts in cunning which can penetrate more cultivated and susceptible minds. The manner by which they dresstheir food is peculiar; and it being covered with wood-smoke is unsavoury to delicate taste; yet, had a Gipsy's dish been taken to the dinner table of the translator of Homer, he, being fond of unseasonable ragouts, might have immortalized it in song. Neither Mrs. Glass, nor the hostess of the Cleikum, has disserted on the culinary process of the Gipsy tribes, and it would puzzle Ude himself to define the precise mode of dressing a snared hare, or pheasant, over hissing greenwood and white ashes. What an epicurean loss is this to the apes of fashion. To those who have no appetite for common food, and can eat nothing in season. But a higher treat than this remains for the Londoner,-to him, a peep into a Gipsy's Camp is prodigiously romantic!-A jaunt to Norwood or the Green Lanes, in a summer's day, is one of the most superlative luxuries, he and his weekly confined lady can enjoy ; and especially so, when drawn into the illusive circle of the Sybil's charm To such a pair of enthusiasts, there is something relishable, moreover, in being driven under the green branches, when the blast rises suddenly, and a storm falls irresistably to the parched ground; and, if not too frightened for reflecting, they might compare the calm with pleasure, the storm with life's trials, and the changing atmosphere with the variable temperament of passion. But a country fair is the true element of a Gipsy. Not to mention its adjacency to farm-yards, hen-roosts, and credulity. Like the fruit-sellers in town, Gipsies take their appointed station accordingly as they are qualified. One of them exercises his skill in gymnastic sport, and profits by it. Another entertains ths dancing couples up and down the Rent Feast Room,' with the violin, at the village inn. A third solicits the credulous to dip in the lucky bag. A fourth sits under the eaves of a thatched shed, half concealed from public recognisance, and with her dark bright eyes draws the admiring youth: her tongue moves too with rapid charm, and her thousand wild black curls, increase her attractiveness, till she crosses his palm with silver, and tells him all his thoughts of love and beauty. Like many of their betters, Gipsies are pick-pockets. Like painters, they live by art; yet, not like painters, their art supports them. But of what use are Gipsies to society? This question might apply to three-fourths of mankind. If our actions tend not to increase the stock of human happiness, of whatever our tribe or kindred, we live in vain. P. RECOLLECTIONS OF THE BAR "I can never forget the impression I received when I first visited Westminsterhall the high antiquity of the building; the solemn purposes to which it was devoted; the imposing reality of all upon which a youthful imagination had long and fondly dwelt; the presence of men, whose names had gone forth to the utter most parts of the earth, and with which I had been familiar in another hemisphere; even the antiquated but yet appropriate costume of the judges: and no whit less their strange and unmodernized appellations, (they would have fitly graced the Year-book,) created and sustained the delusion that, in despite of reason, carried me back to far distant times, and to things which I had deemed obliterated from the mmds, and wholly withdrawn from the affections of living men. Those whom I beheld seemed separate and distinct from all I had witnessed but the moment before -as Irvine's fine and wilderness-adapted countenance and figure from the redwaistcoated and Manchester-clothed beings who sit beneath him. I looked with curiosity, first at them, then at the wooden prototypes above, to see which would first give signs of life: they were to me reverend creatures of another element; patriarchal images; beings who had survived long centuries, and, when one prepared to speak, verily I expected to have heard some version of good old Norman French flow from his tongue. Then their very names were (as I said, and as the Americans would say,) awful. There was Sir Nash Grose-how it grated on the ear! I remember shuddering simultaneously and sympathetically with himself as I heard that name, and listened to him, while, in tremulous and broken accents, he pronounced the doom of an offender of those days who stood there in his later generation before him; his pale and deeply furrowed countenance, and white overhanging eyebrows were themselves a study for the character of Lear. Sir Soulden Lawrence-he seemed of the times of Runnymede, at the least; bold, bluff, and spirited. Sir Giles Rooke;-old John Heath-his palsied head for ever shaking beneath the weight of years; decrepid to very childishness in appearance, but of sound and wholesome, and vigorous intel lect. Sir Beaumont Hotham, and Sir James Mansfield :—and then there were Sir Simon Le Blanc and Sir Allan Chambre. The last two were Normandy against the world. I should have so liked, I thought, to talk something with them of William Rufus :-even to get hold of some reminiscences-some tale of scandal of the Virgin Queen, would have been a treat; and there were others whom I would fain recollect, but human memory must not be taxed above its strength. It seems as if it strove for existence beyond its birth, in calling to mind such images; and that one must go "beyond the memory of man," even to the reign of Richard (in legal phraseology) to supply the defect. All things about them, too, were then in keeping with the staid and sober dignity-the venerable bearing-the high and cold reserve of those, the judges of the land: there was all the submission, deference, and respect that ever Carthu sian evinced to Dr. Raine, in the conduct of the members of the bar towards them; and it seemed hardly a legal fiction that they were" before the King himself at Westminster." Judges were not the shuttlecocks they have since been; they were permanent, so far as mortality permitted, and had grown old in office; their wigs seemed rather to have been blanched by years than by Barker's art, and all they did corresponded with their age, their rank, and station. One of them would as soon have adverted to the comparative merits of pugilism, as he would have speculated upon the less offensive degrees of assassination, or thought of refusing the Lord Mayor's annual feast. (Then too, by the way, the civic chiefs were quite another thing. There was Sir Brooke Watson and his wooden leg, his large wealth originally derived from half a barrel of molasses given him in charity; his pompous invitation, "You will do me an honour, Sir, I trust at four ;" and his high veneration for Royalty, for Royalty itself was particularly partial to him. Then there was Sir William Staines, who, as he handled the fish trowel in his mayoralty, would entertain the princely ear with the tale of his having carried a hod and held a trowel; and Sir Watkin Lewes, once the proud and wealthy, but then poverty-stricken and in need-he lived and died in a chancery suit! Ask Sir William of the rest, I have no time, and he can tell you all about them.) But to our history-Edward Lord Ellenborough, or old Thurlow, would have annihilated the utter barrister who might have dared to remark on an involuntary yawn, and hold long discourses to the public, of his feelings, and sensibility, and irritability, and all other bility, but his capability. A king's counsel would no more have ventured to have cast aside his wig in the presence of the Bench, than he would have chosen to have been sent to the Bench itself. I scarcely think the judges of those days would have survived that shock. Erskine certainly once dared to raise his voice against his ancient master Buller: but all well-thinking men deemed the act scarcely inferior to parricide itself; and then the mercurial barrister was duly qualified as mad. Even that denizen corporation of a court of justice, the jury, were then really good men and true," such as England could furnish in her better days. They were men of substance and of gravity, without undue pretension; and they knew their place: there was then no smiling, and smirking and nodding between them and the coif. (To be continued.) 66 THE STRANGER. Weep not for the flower, that shall droop in the vale, Where its wild youth was nursed by the wan dering gale; THE TRYSTING PLACE. We met not in the sylvan scene W. Where lovers wish to meet, Where Mammon holds his reign, Around, a crowded space, We dwelt not on the linnets note, But sounds of discord met our ear, They err who say love only dwells |