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watching along the accustomed line of road for the return of Elphin, were turned on the pool beside her, in which the stars were glimmering fitful and faint. As she looked she imagined the water grew brighter and brighter; a wild illumination presently shone upon the pool, and leaped from bank to bank, and suddenly changing into a human form, ascended the margin, and passing her, glided swiftly into the cottage. The visionary form was so like her brother in shape and air, that starting up she flew into the house, with the hope of finding him in his customary seat. She found him not, and impressed with the terror which a wraith or apparition seldom fails to inspire, she uttered a shriek so loud and so piercing as to be heard at Johnstone bank, on the other side of the vale of Corrie.

An old woman now rose suddenly from her seat in the window-sill, the living dread of shepherds, for she travelled the country with a brilliant reputation for witchcraft, and thus she broke in upon the narrative: "I yow, young man, ye tell us the truth upset and down-thrust. I heard my douce grand-mother say, that on the night when Elphin Irving disappeared, disappeared I shall call it, for the bairn can but be gone for a season, to return to us in his own appointed time, she was seated at the fireside at Johnstone bank; the laird had laid aside his bonnet to take the book, when a shriek mair loud, believe me, than a mere woman's shriek, and they can shriek loud enough, else they're sair wranged,-came over the water of Corrie, so sharp and shrilling, that the pewter-plates dinneled on the wall: such a shriek, my douce grand-mother said, as rang in her ear till the hour of her death, and she lived till she was aughty and aught, forty full ripe years after the event. But there is another matter, which, doubtless, I cannot compel ye to believe, it was the common rumour that Elphin Irving came not into the world like the other sinful creatures of the earth, but was one of the Kane-bairns of the fairies, whilk they had to pay to the enemy of man's salvation every seventh year. The poor lady-fairy, -a mother's aye a mother, be she Elve's flesh or Eve's flesh-hid her Elf son beside the christened flesh

in Marion Irving's cradle, and the auld enemy lost his prey for a time. Now hasten on with your story, which is not a bodle the waur for me. The maiden saw the shape of her brother-fell into a faint, or a trance, and the neighbours came flocking in:-gang on with your tale, young man, and dinna be affronted because an auld woman helped ye wi't."

It is hardly known, I resumed, how long Phemie Irving continued in a state of insensibility. The morning was far advanced, when a neighbouring maiden found her seated in an old chair, as white as monumental marble; her hair, about which she had always been solicitous, loosened from its curls, and hanging disordered over her neck and bosom, her hands and forehead; the maiden touched the one and kissed the other, they were as cold as snow and her eyes wide open were fixed on her brother's empty chair, with the intensity of gaze of one who had witnessed the appearance of a spirit. She seemed insensible of any one's presence, and sat fixed, and still, and motionless. The maiden, alarmed at her looks, thus addressed her:-" Phemie, lass, Phemie Irving, dear me, but this be awful! I have come to tell ye, that seven of your pet sheep have escaped drowning in the water; for Corrie, sae quiet and sae gentle yestreen, is rolling and dashing frae bank to bank this morning. Dear me, woman, dinna let the loss of world's gear bereave ye of your senses. I would rather make ye a present of a dozen mug-ewes of the Tinwald brood myself; and now I think on't, if ye'll send over Elphin, I will help him hame with them in the gloaming myself. So, Phemie, woman, be comforted."

At the mention of her brother's name she cried out, "Where is he? Oh, where is he?"-gazed wildly round, and shuddering from head to foot, fell senseless on the floor. Other inhabitants of the valley, alarmed by the sudden swell of the river, which from a brook had augmented to a torrent, deep and impassable, now came in to inquire if any loss had been sustained, for numbers of sheep and teds of hay had been observed floating down about the dawn of the morning. They assisted in reclaim

1822.

ing the unhappy maiden from her swoon; but insensibility, was joy, compared to the sorrow to which she awakened. "They have ta'en him away, they have ta'en him away," she chaunted, in a tone of delirious pathos ; "him that was whiter and fairer than the lily on Lyddal-lee. They have long sought, and they have long sued, and they had the power to prevail against my prayers at last. They have ta'en him away; the flower is plucked from among the weeds, and the dove is slain amid a flock of ravens. They came with shout, and they came with song, and they spread the charm, and they placed the spell, and the baptized brow has been bowed down to the unbaptized hand. They have ta'en him away, they have ta'en him away; he was too lovely, and too good, and too noble to bless us with his continuance on earth; for what are the sons of men compared to him?—the light of moon-beam, to the morning sun; the glow-worm, to the eastern star. They have ta'en him away; the invisible dwellers of the earth. I saw them come on him with shouting and with singing, and they charmed him where he sat, and away they bore him; and the horse he rode was never shod with iron, nor owned, before, the mastery of human hand. They have ta'en him away over the water, and over the I got wood, and over the hill. but ae look of his bonnie blue ee, but ae, ae look. But as I have endured what never maiden endured, so shall I undertake what never maiden undertook, I will win him from them all. I know the invisible ones of the earth; I have heard their wild and wondrous music in the wild woods, and there shall a christened maiden seek him, and achieve his deliverance." She paused, and glancing around a circle of condoling faces, down which the tears were dropping like rain, said, in a calm and altered, but still delirious tone"Why do you weep, Mary Halliday? and why do you weep, John Graeme? Ye think that Elphin Irving; oh, its a bonnie, bonnie name, and dear to many a maiden's heart as well as mine; ye think he is drowned in Corrie, and ye will seek in the deep, deep pools for the bonnie, bonnie corse, that ye may weep over it, as

it lies in its last linen, and lay it, amid
weeping and wailing, in the dowie
kirk-yard.

Ye may seek, but ye
shall never find; so leave me to trim
up my hair, and prepare my dwel-
ling, and make myself ready to watch
for the hour of his return to upper
earth." And she resumed her house-
hold labours with an alacrity which
lessened not the sorrow of her friends.

Meanwhile the rumour flew over the vale that Elphin Irving was drowned in Corriewater. Matron and and maid, old man and young, collected suddenly along the banks of the river which now began to subside to its natural summer limits, and commenced their search; interrupted every now and then by calling from side to side, and from pool to pool, and by exclamations of sorrow for this misfortune. The search was fruitless: five sheep, pertaining to the flock which he conducted to pasture, were found drowned in one of the deep eddies, but the river was still too brown from the soil of its moorland sources to enable them to see what its deep shelves, its pools, and its overcharging and hazely banks concealed. They remitted farther search till the streams should become pure, and old man taking old man aside, began to whisper about the mystery of the youth's disappearwomen laid their lips ance; old to the ears of their coevals, and talked of Elphin Irving's fairy parentage, and his having been dropt by an unearthly hand into a ChrisThe young men and tian cradle. maids conversed on other themes; they grieved for the loss of the friend and the lover, and while the former thought that a heart so kind and true was not left in the vale, the latter thought, as maidens will, on his handsome person, gentle manners, and merry blue eye, and speculated with a sigh on the time they might have hoped a return for their love. They were soon joined by others who had heard the wild and delirious language of his sister: the old belief was added to the new assurance, and by both again commented upon minds full of superstitious belief, and hearts full of supernatural fears, till the youths and maidens of Corrievale held no more love trystes for seven days and nights, lest, like Elphin Irving, they should be carried away

to augment the ranks of the unchristened chivalry.

It was curious to listen to the speculations of the peasantry. "For my part," said a youth, "if I were sure that poor Elphin escaped from that perilous water, I would not give the fairies a pound of hiplock wool for their chance of him. There has not been a fairy seen in the land since Donald Cargil, the Cameronian, conjured them into the Solway for playing on their pipes during one of his nocturnal preachings on the hip of the Burnswark hill." "Preserve me, bairn," said an old woman, justly exasperated at the incredulity of her nephew, "if ye winna believe what I both heard and saw at the moonlight end of Craigyburnwood on a summer night, rank after rank of the fairy folk; ye'll at least believe a douce man and a ghostly professor, even the late minister of Tinwaldkirk: his only son, I mind the lad weel with his long yellow locks and his bonnie blue eyes, when I was but a gilpie of a lassie, he was stolen away from off the horse at his father's elbow, as they crossed that false and fearsome water, even Locherbriggflow, on the night of the Midsummer fair of Dumfries. Aye, aye, who can doubt the truth of that; have not the godly inhabitants, of Almsfieldtown and Tinwaldkirk seen the sweet youth riding at midnight, in the midst of the unhallowed troop, to the sound of flute and of dulcimer; and though meikle they prayed, naebody tried to achieve his deliverance." "I have heard it said by douce folk and sponsible," ,"interrupted another, "that every seven years the elves and fairies pay kane, or make an offering of one of their children to the grand enemy of salvation, and that they are permitted to purloin one of the children of men to present to the fiend; a more acceptable offering I'll warrant, than one of their own infernal brood that are Satan's sib allies, and drink a drop of the deil's blood every May morning. And touching this lost lad, ye all ken his mother was a hawk of an uncannie nest, a second cousin of Kate Kimmer, of Barfloshan, as rank a witch as ever rode on ragwort. Aye, Sirs, what's bred in the bone is ill to come out of the flesh." On these and similar topics, which a peasantry, full of ancient tradition

and enthusiasm, and superstition, readily associate with the commonest occurrences of life, the people of Corrievale continued to converse till the fall of evening; when each seeking their home, renewed again the wondrous subject, and illustrated it with all that popular belief and poetic imagination could so abundantly supply.

The night which followed this melancholy day was wild with wind and rain; the river came down broader and deeper than before, and the lightning, flashing by fits over the green woods of Corrie, showed the ungovernable and perilous flood sweeping above its banks. It happened that a farmer, returning from one of the border fairs, encountered the full swing of the storm; but mounted on an excellent horse, and mantled from chin to heel in a good grey plaid, beneath which he had the farther security of a thick great-coat, he sat dry in his saddle, and proceeded in the anticipated joy of a subsided tempest and a glowing morning sun. As he entered the long grove, or rather remains of the old Galwegian forest, which lines for some space the banks of the Corriewater, the storm began to abate, the wind sighed milder and milder among the trees; and here and there a star, twinkling momentarily through the sudden rack of the clouds, showed the river raging from bank to brae. As he shook the moisture from his clothes, he was not without a wish that the day would dawn, and that he might be preserved on a road which his imagination beset with greater perils than the raging river; for his superstitious feeling let loose upon his path elf and goblin, and the current traditions of the district supplied very largely to his apprehension the ready materials of fear.

Just as he emerged from the wood, where a fine sloping bank, covered with short green sward, skirts the limit of the forest, his horse made a full pause, snorted, trembled, and started from side to side, stooped his head, erected his ears, and seemed to scrutinize every tree and bush. The rider too, it may be imagined, gazed round and round, and peered warily into every suspicious looking place. His dread of a supernatural visitation was not much allayed, when

he observed a female shape seated on the ground at the root of a huge old oak-tree, which stood in the centre of one of those patches of verdant sward, known by the name of "fairy rings," and avoided by all peasants who wish to prosper. A long thin gleam of eastern day-light enabled him to examine accurately the being who, in this wild place and unusual hour, gave additional terror to this haunted spot. She was dressed in white from the neck to the knees; her arms, long, and round, and white, were perfectly bare; her head uncovered, allowed her long hair to de

scend in ringlet succeeding ringlet, till the half of her person was nearly concealed in the fleece. Amidst the whole, her hands were constantly busy in shedding aside the tresses which interposed between her steady and uninterrupted gaze, down a line of old road which winded among the hills to an ancient burial ground.

As the traveller continued to gaze, the figure suddenly rose, and wringing the rain from her long locks, paced round and round the tree, chaunting in a wild and melancholy manner an equally wild and delirious song.

THE FAIRY OAK OF CORRIEWATER.
1.

The small bird's head is under its wing,
The deer sleeps on the grass;

The moon comes out and the stars shine down,
The dew gleams like the glass:

There is no sound in the world so wide,

Save the sound of the smitten brass,

With the merry cittern and the pipe

Of the fairies as they pass.

But oh! the fire maun burn and burn,

And the hour is gone and will never return.

2.

The green hill cleaves, and forth, with a bound, Comes elf and elfin steed;

The moon dives down in a golden cloud,

The stars grow dim with dread;

But a light is running along the earth,

So of heaven's they have no need:

O'er moor and moss with a shout they pass,
And the word is spur and speed-

But the fire maun burn and I maun quake,

And the hour is gone that will never come back.

3.

And when they came to Craigyburnwood
The Queen of the fairies spoke ;

"Come, bind your steeds to the rushes so green, And dance by the haunted oak:

I found the acorn on Heshbon-hill,

In the nook of a palmer's poke,

A thousand years since; here it grows!"

And they danced till the greenwood shook

But oh! the fire, the burning fire

The longer it burns, it but blazes the higher.

4.

"I have won me a youth," the Elf-queen said, "The fairest that earth may see;

This night I have won young Elph Irving
My cup-bearer to be.

His service lasts but for seven sweet years,

And his wage is a kiss of me."

And merrily, merrily, laugh'd the wild elves
Round Corrie's greenwood tree.-

But oh! the fire it glows in my brain,
And the hour is gone and comes not again.

5.

The Queen she has whisper'd a secret word,
"Come hither my Elphin sweet,
And bring that cup of the charmed wine,
Thy lips and mine to weet."

But a brown elf shouted a loud loud shout,
"Come, leap on your coursers fleet,

For here comes the smell of some baptized flesh,
And the sounding of baptized feet."

But oh! the fire that burns, and maun burn;
For the time that is gone will never return.

6.

On a steed as white as the new-milk'd milk
The Elf-queen leap'd with a bound,
And young Elphin a steed like December snow
'Neath him at the word he found.

But a maiden came, and her christened arms
She linked her brother around,

And called on God, and the steed with a snort
Sank into the gaping ground.-

But the fire maun burn and I maun quake,

And the time that is gone will no more come back.

7.

And she held her brother, and lo! he grew

A wild bull waked in ire ;

And she held her brother, and lo! he changed

To a river roaring higher;

And she held her brother, and he became

A flood of the raging fire;

She shrieked and sank, and the wild elves laughed

Till mountain rang and mire.

But oh! the fire yet burns in my brain,

And the hour is gone and comes not again.

8.

"Oh maiden, why waxed thy faith so faint,
Thy spirit so slack and slaw?

Thy courage kept good till the flame wax'd wud,
Then thy might began to thaw;

Had ye kissed him with thy christen'd lip,

Ye had won him frae 'mang us a'.
Now bless the fire, the elfin fire,

That made thee faint and fa';

Now bless the fire, the elfin fire,
The longer it burns it blazes the higher.”

At the close of this unusual strain the figure sat down on the grass, and proceeded to bind up her long and disordered tresses, gazing along the old and unfrequented road. "Now God be my helper," said the traveller, who happened to be the laird of Johnstonebank," can this be a trick of the fiend, or can it be bonnie Phemie Irving, who chaunts this dolorous sang? Something sad has befallen that makes her seek her seat in this eerie nook amid the darkness and tempest: through might from aboon I will go on and see." And the orse, feeling something of the owner's

reviving spirit in the application of
spur-steel, bore him at once to the
foot of the tree. The poor delirious
maiden uttered a yell of piercing joy
as she beheld him, and with the
swiftness of a creature winged, linked
her arms round the rider's waist and
shrieked till the woods rang.
"Oh,
I have ye now, Elphin, I have ye
now," and she strained him to her
bosom with a convulsive grasp.
"What ails ye, my bonnie lass?" said
the laird of Johnstonebank, his fears
of the supernatural vanishing, when
he beheld her sad and bewildered
look. She raised her eyes at the

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