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. 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."

I

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 reclaiming the unhappy maiden from her swoon; but insensibility was joy, compared to the sorrow to which she awakened. 66 They have ta'en him away, they have ta'en him away," she chaunted, in a tone of delirious pathos;

him that what was whiter and fairer than the lily of 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 un

baptized 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 moonbeam, to the morning sun; the glowworm, 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 wood, and over the hill. I got 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 dwelling, and make thyself ready to watch for the hour of his re turn to upper earth." And she resumed her household 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 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 moreland 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 stream should become pure, and old man taking old man aside, began to whisper about the mystery of the youth's disappearance; old women laid their lips to the ears of their coevals, and talked of Elphin Ir ving's fairy parentage, and his having been dropped by an unearthly hand into a Christian cradle. The young men and maidens conversed on other themes; they grieved for the loss of the friend and the lover, and while the former thought that another heart so kind and true was not left in the vale, the latter thought, as maidens will, on the 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 this new assurance, and both again commented upon by 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 Brunswark 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 een, 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 Dum fries. Aye, aye, who can doubt the truth of that; have not the goodly 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 dulcimer; and though mickle they prayed, nobody 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 Barsfloshan, as rank

66

a witch as ever rode on rag wort. "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 occurrence of life, the people of Corrievale continued to converse till the fall of evening; when each seeking his 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 the 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 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 tide, 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 white, were perfectly bare; her head ur.covered, allowed her long hair to descend 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.

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 ch! the fire maun burn and burn,
And the hour is gone and will never return.

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.

And when they came to Craigyburnwood
The Queen of the Fairies poke;
"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 ob! the fire, the burning fire

The longer it burus, it but blazes the higher.

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

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

His service lasts but for seven sweet years,
And his wage is a kiss for me."

And merrily, merrily, lauga'd the wild elves
Round Corrie's greenwood tree-
But ob! the fire it glows in my brain,
And the hour is gone and comes not again.

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

But a brown If shouted a loud loud shout,
"Come, leap on your coursets fleet.

For here comes the smell of some baptized fle:b,
And the sounding of baptized feet "-
But oh! the fire that burns, and maun barn;
For the time that is gone will never return.
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 be 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 mauu quake,
And the time that is gone will no more come back.

ceeded to bind up her long and disordered tresses, gazed along the old and "Now God be unfrequented road.

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 horse, 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 shriek

ed 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 sound, and seeing a strange face, her arms slipped their hold and she dropped with a groan on the ground.

The morning had now fairly broke; the flocks shook the rain from their sides, the shepherds hastened to inspect their charges, and a thin blue smoke began to stream from the cottages of the valley into the brightening air. The laird carried Phemie Irving in his arms, till he observed two shepherds ascending from one of the loops of Corriewater, bearing the lifeless body of her brother. They had found him whirling round and round in one of the numerous eddies, and his hand clutched and filled with wool shewed that he had lost his life in attempting to save the flock of his sister. A plaid was laid over the body, which, along with the maiden in a half lifeless state, was carried into a cottage, and laid in that apartment distinguished among the peasantry by the name of the chamber. While a pea

sant's wife was left to take care of Phemie,-old man and matron, and maid had collected around the drowned youth, and each began to relate the circumstance of his death, when the door suddenly opened, and his sister, advancing to the corse with a look of delirious serenity, broke out into a wild laugh and said: "O, it is wonderful, it's truly wonderful! that bare and death-cold body, dragged from the darkest pool of Corrie, with its hands filled with fine wool, bears the perfect similitude of my own Elphin! I'll tell ye-the spiritual dwellers of the earth, the Fairy-folk of our evening tale, have stolen the living body, and fashioned this cold and inanimate clod to mislead your pursuit. In common eyes this seems all that Elphin Irving would be, had he sunk in Corriewater; but so it seems not to me. Ye have sought the living soul, and ye have found only its garment. But oh, if ye had beheld him, as I beheld him to-night, riding among the elfin troop the fairest of them all; had you clasped him in your arms, and wrestled with the spirits and terrible shapes from the other world, till your heart quailed and your flesh was subdued, then would ye yield no credit to the semblance this cold and apparent flesh bears to my brother. But hearken-on Hallowmasseve, when the spiritual people are let loose on earth for a season, I will take my stand in the burial ground of Corrie, and when my Elphin and his unchristened troop come past with the sound of all their minstrelsy, I will leap on him and win him, or perish for ever."

All gazed aghast on the delirious maiden, and many of her auditors gave more credence to her distempered speech than to the visible evidence before them. As she turned to depart she looked round, and suddenly sank upon the body with tears streaming from her eyes, and sobbed out, "My brother! Oh, my brother!" She was carried

out insensible, and again recovered; and relapsed into her ordinary dilirium, in which she continued till the Halloweve after her brother's burial. She was found seated in the ancient burialground, her back against a broken grave-stone, her locks white with frostrime, seemingly watching with intensity of look the road to the kirk-yard: but the spirit which gave life to the fairest form of all the maids of Annandale was fled for ever.-Such is the singular story which the peasants know by the name of Elphin Irving, the Fairies' Cupbearer; and the title, in its fullest and most supernatural sense, still obtains credence among the industrious and virtuous dames of the romantic vale of Corrie. Even to this day there are more poetical compositions made upon the history of Phemie Irving and her brother than on any other fairy tale; and the following song may be often heard by the traveller issuing from the rosy lips of some charming peasant of Annandale.

Gay is thy glen, Corrie,

With all thy groves flowering;
Green is thy gen, Corrie,
When July is showering;

And sweet is you wood,

Where the small birds are bowering, And there dwells the sweet one Whom I am adoring.

ller round neck is whiter

Than winter when snowing, Her meek voice is milder

Than Ae in its flowing; The glad ground yields music Where she goes ly the river, One kind glance would charm me For ever and ever.

The proud and the wealthy

To Phemie are bowing; No looks of love win they With sighing or suing; Far away maun I stand

With my rude wooing, She's a flow'ret too lovely To bloom for my pu'ing.

O were I you violet,

On which she is walking; O were 1 yon small bird,

To which she is talking; Or you rose in her hand, With its ripe ruddy blossom; Or some pure gentle thought, To be blest with her bosom.