have never thought of another, of the sweetest bread, and a bason though I was in my prime when I of the fairest meal, for your molost him--and I made it a point to ther and you, and mickle good may have a kind look, and something they do ye. So the woman becked, comfortable and warm for him when and the weans bowed, and taking he came home at even. So as the my presents, vanished from my hearth sun was setting I baked a cake, and like a flash of will-o'-wisp light. put it over the embers,--for weel His presence be near me, said I, he loved a kneaded cake, and, aue I have been communing with elves, brander'd brown ;---I never kneada and giving Christian bread to the cakes now but I think of him. So imps of darkness."qgod 2.47 mier the cake was on the embers, and aid never heard a tale like that," sweet smell it made for the meal said the miller, but saw ye ever was white and warm from the mill the wee wee womanie again? ee, and I sat beside it to watch and turn it. As I sat I thought I heard a foot on the floor, and looking o'er my shoulder who saw I but a wee wee womanie! A wee wee womanie, and snodly was she clad, and fair was her face; and without halt or curchee close came shen to my side. I think I see her yet and hear her words, Barbara Macmurdo, said the wee wee womanie, using my maiden name, I live nigh thy house, I live on the same bread, and drink of the same water. But water waxes scant, and bread is far from sure; and those who gather earth's sweetest fruits for me are now in Guiana and Araby, seeking spice, and cloves, and myrrh, and will not be with me sooner than morning, The smell of thy new-meal cake is sweets and we felt it underground, and my little babes love it. Theres fore give me some, and when the next meller is grounds in Croga mill I will repay thee. Give and prosper-refuse and pine? it "So I looked at the wee wee wo manie, the least Lever saw with her fair face, and her dang curling hair, her jupes of broom blossom, and her kirtle of peagreen, Wil lingly will give,' said I, a hot cake and a bason of new meal; but, O yeoare a wee wee lady, and weel would I like to see yere bairns are they as fair and as little as thee?' She laughed and clapt her hands, and stamped her foot, and lo and behold there started up at her side two of the sweetest bairns I ever saw; they were no longer than twa daffodils this gray hood of mine would have robed them both like kings, and thy whomelled hopper would have made them a palace. And they flew about like birds. • Bairns,' I said, here's a cake " Again," said Barbara, "aye truly did I, man, and that in two or three weeks. It was between light and dark, and I was baking bread, when in came the wee wee womanie,---her hair was curling down her back, and her kirtle of green was sown ofere with something that glittered like stars, and set thicker than the gowans on Croga bank in the spring. Mortal, she said, 'ye gave us what ye could ill spare, and I give you what we can weel want. For the sweet supper ye gave my bairns and me, take this bason filled with fairy meal; human hunger shall never empty it, and it shall be ever full: But if ye feed brute or bird with this sacred food the charm which blesses it is broken.' And melting into the twilight, I never saw her more. But many a day have I blessed the charmed bason, and tasted of its blessed food,---and a rich wife and a prosperous I became. 0 woman," said the miller, his eyes dilating with a joy not, without some small mixture of fear, I would give ye a forpit of gold for such a blessed heir-loom as that,--but d'ye think it is cannie, and according to the revealed word, to keep it and profit by it---I have my own doubts on that point," shabborovt beta 1 Miller," said Barbara," cast nae doubts on the permitted fee and bounty of God did not the winds of old waft quails and manna on the chosen people, and did not the ravens, that in these accursed days pick out the eyes of our lambs, carry food to the inspired prophet? But the blessed cup of my prosperity is gone; I was bereaved of it by the gowk laird of Haverland; and how, ye shall hear. He was out hunting, and in came he with his three hounds, as I sat making the bairns' breakfast,-- the charmed bowl sat beside me, he seized it and gave it to his dogs. I think I see the poor dumb brutes now,---the first mouthful they took turned into ashes and chaff---the second mouthful seemed lappered blood, and the third mouthful became burning fire. The hounds howl'd, and the laird swore, and I wept. One *hound stretched itself out on the floor and died,---ahother ran to Croga hill top, and there it sat night and day barking at the sun and moon till it died also,---and the third raised up a howl at my hearth-stane as if it had started a hare, and away it flew over hill, and through daleand, hapless hound, it is running yet with the elfin hare before it; and I wish the laird himself was doomed to follow the chace.” ** t "Aboon all breathing folk, goodwife," said the miller, suppressing a laugh with some difficulty, "ye are the rarest teller of a wild tale that ever was possess'd with the belief that the world has such impish inhabitants as elves and fairies. And so there was an end to your charmed cup, and its blessed meal! Ah, goodwife, there is a mighty lack of marvels in the land now; and yet wonderful to hear as your tale indeed is, it's but shellen seeds to sifted meal compared to what happened to my own simple self here in the saddle I where I sit. Ye maun ken, lass, that in my youthful days I was nae doucer than I should be; I ran to fairs, and preachings, and trystes, and wooed many maidens in many parishes. And I think ye are nae o'er proud to forget that I once or twice had a gliff of dauting with yere bonnie sell. Ye need na wave yere hand, and geck yere head sae, for I dare say ye remember the occasion. Conscience,lass, ye can wave yere head as wantonly now as ye did in the year of repentance seventeen hundred and twelve. Ye were a bonnie lass then, and a merry one too, goodwife, and made mony a clever lad sigh after supper time, for ye were as proud as a peacock and as distant as a wild doe. There was bonnie Jamie Elshonhaft, he never did mair good after ye scorned him at Bankfoot Kirn,-and was nae I a proud lad when I could whistle ye out to the lee-side of Croga-bank thorn, with nae better light to wooe by than that of the summer stars. But I am seventy and odd years old now, and these days are flown away,-and what's worse there's no wiling o' them back. And yet it is pleasant to think upon them, though they are sprinkled, as John Rowatt says, with the dews of morning sin, and strewn with the blossoming flowers of early iniquity.” "Ye are mad, miller," said she of the Elfknowe, "what are tryste thorns, and midnight hours, and 'stolen interviews, to two such feckless bodies as we? Our first tryste place maun be the fellowship of worms under the kirkyard sod; and that's the consummation all courtship comes to. But could I with a wish grow young again, and bring a score of lads to the smiling of my eye, and the waving of my hand, as may be I have done in my day,-at fairs too, and dances, and, what was more sinful, I'm afraid, at preachings also, I'm no sure that the wish would be uttered unless I could also be sure that I would be wiser and better;— and when I think on poor human nature among the tempting teens, I'm no so certain that I should escape sae clean as I have. Sae never wish, man, for auld days back again. There will be maids to wooe, and lads to smile, aneath the summer stars and the winter moon as heretofore;-there will be vows in the dark, and kisses given to the lip, when we are ripe and rotten. There will be the lover and the beloved; the deceived and the deceiver, the warm heart and the cold, as have ever been, and so the world goes on, and why should we wish to go back?" To all this the miller replied not, but casting a suspicious and a startled glance on the right hand side of the glen, where a thick bower of mountain ash and holly overhung its bosom, patted his horse's neck, and said in a low voice, "Dustyfoot, my man, what look ye at, lad? Faith, Barbara, the dumb brute sees something, and sees nought that's good, for he shakes under me like a leaf o' the linn, and your horse is snorting and smelling too. Grace be near us! see ye yon elfwoman, wi' her bairn in her bosom, seated by the side of Saint Dervorgoil's well?-as sure as corn grows and water runs she's a low voice began to chaunt, like one there for nae good to us." "And they singing to soothe a child, the followboth made a full halt,-gazed as ifing verses. It is true that but a few they would gaze through the rocky side of the glen,-nor was it Superstition's fear, that artist of wonderful forms, which was at work to dismay them. I have, when a boy, drunk water out of the well of this Galwegian saint, which spouts up through a little trough of stone in the glen of Croga. Virtues are imputed to it by the old people; and those whom it frees from sickness or pain leave a small offering at its brink-at the time I saw it two pieces of ribbon and a ring were tied to a branch of holly, which partly shaded it, and a piece of old silver, the coin of one of the earlier Scottish kings, lay shining at the bottom,-the offering of a mother for the health of her child. At the side of this well the miller and his companion saw a woman seated with a child in her bosom, a fair young woman from a distant place. She seemed unconscious or careless of the presence of strangers, and gazed alone at the moon, with its red edge resting on the hill, and at the stars shining in multitudes above her, and at the little well sending forth its silver thread of water among the grass at her feet. She took from her bosom a token of silver, and dropt it into the well, and in scattered words of this mystic lyric survived in the memories of the two listeners, and that, after the lapse of years, the measure of the melody, and the original strain of sentiment, had alone been secured from oblivion. But dismembered and imperfect as it was, I recited it to one of the peasant poets of the district, who assured me it was a genuine antique, modified by some gifted person to suit the circumstances under which the young woman sung it,-a kind of change, he observed, which many of our national and domestic lyrics had undergone; and with that tenderness and regard which one man of genius feels for the suffering labours of another, he filled up the gaps which former forgetfulness had made. For this he made something of an apology, saying, the rudeness of his own interpolations would soon be singled out by the critical sagacity of the age,-modern dross was easily distinguished from antique gold; but he had a pleasure of his own in ekeing out the ancient mutilated-melodies of his country, and he cared little for the opinion of those "chippers and hewers," the men who sold their judgment to the public either monthly or quarterly. But for the song. OUR LADYE'S BLESSED WELL. The moon is gleaming far and near, And now's the time to bathe my babe O thou wert born as fair a babe Was it a breath of evil wind That harm'd thee, lovely child; I've watch'd thee in the mirk midnight, The moon is sitting on the hill, On a far sea thy father sails He thinks on thee, and thinks on me, And sings, while he his white sail trims, O, blessed fountain, give her back While she sung this singular lyric, she removed the mantle from her child, took all covering from its body and limbs, and lifting it towards the moon, showed a form much withered and wasted away. She muttered a prayer over it, and then taking water from the well with her hands, showered it plentifully over its body; the child, perhaps accustomed to such ablution, was silent. "Goodwife," said the miller, " as sure as mill stones run round, that's an elf woman and that's an elfchild,-or they are the fair resemblances, made by the foul spirit, of a mother and bairn, for deceiving thee and me, and bringing us to shame. Let us ride back and waken the goodman of Pyetstane; he's a bold body, and can face aught, and he never swears but when he's sober, and I vow, before sunset, I saw him staggering like a smuggler when his cargo's discharged." "Fool, man," said she of the Elfknowe, see ye not that it is a poor young woman benighted under the dark cloud of ancient belief, douking her unweel bairn in the spring well, accounted holy in Catholic times? Ah, lass, Saint Dervorgoil has lost her charm now, and the water of her blessed well has had little virtue since the reformation. Ye may as well wash it in evening dew, and lay it out to be cured by the influence of the stars on the top of Fardinrush hill, as daft Nell Candlish did, when her babe was found by the shepherds frozen in the morning cold, like a flower. Alas! the spirit of salvation, if ever such a spirit was there, has departed from the blessed well, and there's no a pool in Croga but what would do the same wonders for the flesh of man. But, alas! it's hard to make a mither believe that there's nae charm can heal the sick babe at her bosom; and there's nae doubt this poor young creature has come many a weary mile to bathe her child in the blessed fount of Saint Dervorgoil. There was Willie Maclellan's mither carried him hither out of the wild roons of Galloway, and a bonnie bairn she made him ;-there's a natural virtue in pure spring water, that cannot be made stronger by the best saint o' the calendar.” "After all, goodwife," said her more scrupulous companion, "she may be a fairy mother come to wash her imp in the blessed well, so that it may seem every seventh day a douce Christian. Od, I have heard of such things, and it would nae be unwise thing to ride back to the e Manse, and have the minister's opinion. “Whisht, man, whisht," said Barbara, "the young woman has bathed her child; she is now wrapping it up, and see, she comes down the bank:-Hame shall she come with me, for she is a stranger in a strange land, and carries a fatherless babe in her bosom, and that's both right and reason why she should come to the house of Elfknowe." The young woman spoke as she approached. "A pleasant way and welcome at hame to ye baith, and the good wishes of a stranger go with you. I have come from the Solway shore bathe the babe of my bosom in Saint Dervorgoil's blessed well;-thrice have I come at the full hour of the moon, and the babe is recovering even as a parched flower when the summer rain comes. Sore was it faded, and had ceased to leap in my arms and smile in my face;-but look at the sweet wee innocent now; it has light in its eyes, and life on its brow, and the bloom has come back to its cheek-my blessing upon the blessed well of Croga." And removing the mantle from the face of her child, she held it up amid the light of the departing moon, and smiled. O woman," said Barbara, " "ye are a kind mother, but a wondrous idolater,―a worshipper of wells and springs, and times of the moon, and set and appointed places. And yet ye have many a douce body's judgment to countenance ye in your belief in old influences. I had a brother myself who fell asleep once in the Fairy-Ring of Croga, and when he awoke, his bloom had faded, and his strength was nigh gone, and for many a blessed hour he went twofold over a staff. Now my father was an elder of God's kirk, and mickle he prayed for the baith's health, but health came not, and my mother stole him out, and dipt him thrice in the blessed well of Croga, and he grew a stalwart man, and went to a ripe grave in his grey hairs. So as the night's cold, and way long, had ye no better come with me to Elfknowe, and stay till JUNE, 1823. the the sun shines?" Alas! no, goodwife," said the sailor's spouse, " for I maun be on the shore of Solway at the first come of the tide, and all to dip my bairn in the increasing waters. There's a charm in the full moontide; and it's sweet to hear it sughing and singing among the shells and pebbles; away maun I gang, and I am o'er long here." "Woman, woman," said the dame of Elf knowe, "thou wilt slay t the child with spells, and take away its sweet life with charms but go thy ways,-for a mother who wishes weel to her babe is a wilful creature, go thy ways:" and the woman and her child were soon lost among the woods of Croga. Miller Milroy and his companion moved quietly homewards along the bank of the water, till they came near the mill, on the dusty summit of which the moon threw a level and a parting beam. The miller rode foremost, he passed the shellen-hill, where several worn-out barley millstones and fragments of old machinery lay strewn about, and when he came between the mill-dam and the door he made a full halt, raised the broad blue bonnet from his brow, muttered a hasty prayer, and said; "God have his hands about us! saw ever man such a sight ?-there, the Elfin Miller of Croga has loosed my dam, and flooded the wheel;-hear ye nae how the wheels and stones dunner and shake?-Alas! there will be a fairy curse pronounced on hopper and sieve, and what will come of my merry mill and my deep milldam?" He wrung his hands in agony. Now the dame of Elfknowe drew up her horse close to that of the miller, held her hand before her eyes to concentrate her powers of vision, laid back the remainder locks from her ears, to let all sounds have free access, and gazed with an earnest eye on the mill and the mill-dam, and said, "May the powers aboon open my sight that I may see all these marvels;-nor elf nor fairy see I There stands the dusty mill with the door closed, the milldam flowing o'er, the outer wheel standing still, and nought hear I save the drop and dribble of the trows, and nought see I save five ducks sleeping with their heads aneath their wings. Preserve me, miller, are ye sure ye're no win2Z |