elves and sea fairies, who sometimes keep festival and summer mirth in these old haunted hulks, from falling in love with the well-faured wife of Laird Macharg; and to their plots and contrivances they went how they might accomplish to sunder man and wife, and sundering such a man and such a wife was like sundering the green leaf from the summer, or the fragrance from the flower. So it fell on a time that Laird Macharg took his halve-net on his back, and his steel spear in his hand, and down to Blawhooly bay gade he, and into the water he went right between the two haunted hulks, and placing his net awaited the coming of the tide. The night, ye maun ken, was mirk, and the wind lowne, and the singing of the increasing waters among the shells and the peebles was heard for sundry miles. All at once lights began to glance and twinkle on board the two Haunted Ships from every hole and seam, and presently the sound as of a hatchet employed in squaring timber echoed far and wide. But if the toil of these unearthly workmen amazed the laird, how much more was his amazement increased when a sharp shrill voice called out, Ho! brother, what are you doing now?' A voice still shriller responded from the other hauntship, I'm making a wife to Sandie Macharg!' and a loud quavering laugh running from ship to ship, and from bank to bank, told the joy they expected from their labour. Now the laird, besides being a devout and a God-fearing man, was shrewd and bold; and in plot, and contrivance, and skill in conducting his designs, was fairly an overmatch for any dozen land elves; but the water elves are far more subtle; besides, their haunts and their dwellings being in the great deep, pursuit and detection is hopeless if they succeed in carrying their prey to the waves. But ye shall hear. Home flew the laird,-collected his family around the hearth,-spoke of the signs and the sins of the times, and talked of

mortification and prayer for averting calamity; and finally taking his father's Bible, brass clasps, black print, and covered with calf-skin, from the shelf, he proceeded without let or stint to perform domestic worship. I should have told ye that he bolted and locked the door, shut up all inlet to the house, threw salt into the fire, and proceeded in every way like a man skilful in guarding against the plots of fairies and fiends. His wife looked on all this with wonder; but she saw something in her husband's looks that hindered her from intruding either question or advice, and a wise woman was she. Near the mid hour of the night the rush of a horse's feet was heard, and the sound of a rider leaping from its back, and a heavy knock came to the door, accompanied by a voice, saying, The cummer drink's hot, and the knave bairn is expected at Laird Laurie's to-night'; sae mount, good-wife, and come.' "Preserve me ! said the wife of Sandie Macharg; that's news indeed; who could have thought it? the laird has been heirless for seventeen years! Now Sandie, my man, fetch me my skirt and hood.' But he laid his arm round his wife's neck, and said, If all the lairds in Galloway go heirless, over this door threshold shall you not stir to-night; and I have said, and I have sworn it: seek not to know why nor wherefore-but, Lord, send us thy blessed morn-light.' The wife looked for a moment in her husband's eyes, and desisted from further entreaty.

But let us send a civil message to the gossips, Sandie; and hadnae ye better say I am sair laid with a sudden sickness; though its sinful-like to send the puir messenger a mile agate with a lie in his mouth without a glass of brandy.'

To such a messenger, and to those who sent him, no apology is needed,' said the austere laird, 6 so let him depart.' And the clatter of a horse's hoofs was heard, and the muttered imprecations of its rider on the churlish treatment he had experienced. Now,

Sandie, my lad,' said his wife, laying an arm particularly white and round about his neck as she spoke, are you not a queer man and a stern? I have been your wedded wife now these three years; and beside my dower, have brought you three as bonny bairns as ever smiled aneath a summer sun. 0 man, you are a douce man, and fitter to be an elder than even Willie Greer himself, I have the minister's ain word for't, to put on these hard-hearted looks, and gang waving your arms that way. as if ye said, I winna take the counsel of sic a hempie as you,' your ain leal wife; I will and I maun have an explanation.' To all this Sandie Macharg replied, "It is written "wives, obey your husbands;" but we have stayed in our devotion, so let us pray; and down he knelt; his wife knelt also, for she was as devout as bonnie; and beside them knelt their household, and all lights were extinguished. • Now this beats a', muttered his wife to herself; however, I shall be obedient for a time; but if I dinna ken what all this is for before the morn by sunkettime, tongue is nae longer a tongue, nor my hands worth wearing.' The voice of her husband in prayer interrupted this mental soliloquy; and ardently did he beseech to be preserved from the wiles of the fiends and the snares of Satan; from witches, ghosts, goblins, elves, fairies, spunkies, and water-kelpies; from the spectre shallop of Solway; from spirits visible and invisible; from the Haunted Ships and their unearthly tenants; from maritime spirits that plotted against godly men, and fell in love with their wives' Nay, but his presence be near us!' said his wife, in a low tone of dismay. God guide my gude-man's wits: I never heard such a prayer from human lips before.

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But Sandie, my man, lordsake rise: what fearful light is this?-barn and byre, and stable, maun be in a blaze; and Hawkie and Hurley, Doddie and Cherrie, and Damson-plum, will be smoored with red, and scorched

with flame.' And a flood of light, but not so gross as a common fire, which ascended to heaven and filled all the court before the house, amply justified the good-wife's suspicions. But to the terrors of fire Sandie was as immoveable as he was to the imaginary groans of the barren wife of Laird Laurie; and he held his wife, and threatened the weight of his right-hand-and it was a heavy one to all who ventured abroad or even unbolted the door. The neighing and prancing of horses, and the bellowing of cows, augmented the horrors of the night; and to any one who only heard the din, it seemed that the whole onstead was in a blaze, and horses and cattle perished in the flame. All wiles, common or extraordinary, were put in practice to entice or force the honest farmer and his wife to open the door; and when the like success attended every new stratagem, silence for a little while ensued, and a long, loud, and shrilling laugh wound up the dramatic efforts of the night. In the morning, when Laird Macharg went to the door, he found standing against one of the pilasters a piece of black ship oak, rudely fashioned into something like human form, and which skilful people declared would have been clothed with seeming flesh and blood, had he admitted his visitants. A synod of wise men and women sat upon the woman of timber, and she was finally ordered to be devoured by fire, and that in the open air. A fire was soon made, and into it the elfin sculpture was tossed from the prongs of two pair of pitchforks. And the blaze that arose was awful to behold; and hissings, and burstings, and loud cracklings, and strange noises, were heard in the midst of the flame; and when the whole sunk into ashes, a drinking cup of some precious metal was found; and this cup, fashioned no doubt by elfin skill, but rendered harmless by the purification with fire, the sons and daughters of Sandie Macharg and his wife drink out of to this very day."

Ar the midnight hour they met, the moon was in the wane, they dared not gaze upon her whilst they framed the magic spell. From the mossy bank the glow-worm's glimmering light played on the stream below. They stood beneath the alders dank, and spake the words of fear. He placed the mystic circlet on her hand, and watched the appointed time. From a maniac's grave they had stolen the earth, they scattered the dust on the stream, they gazed on the northern star. That star withdrew her sparkling rays, and veiled her in a cloud in darkness, and with dread they uttered the awful spell.-The spirits of evil rejoiced, the wind moaned sadly around, the glow-worms quenched their fires, and they who had tempted their fate, who had scattered the maniac's dust, read their doom in the sighs of the wind, and wished the dread accents untold.

The forester departed, he roamed in other climes, the past appeared a dream, he thought not of his plighted vows, nor remembered the force of the spell. She dwelt in the forest glades, beside that limpid stream, far from the haunts of men in deepest solitude. Now days and months had fled, but the forester returned not; the fifth day of the week, when clouds enveloped the northern star, the wind was abroad in the oaks, and the mist and rain were eddying in the valley, the maiden bent her steps to that half-dreaded spot, beside the alders dank. She gazed upon

the bright blue gem, the token of the spell; its colour was unchanged, for the wearer still was true. She longed to prove her lover's faith, and watched the heavens with dread; she uttered the words that wake the dead, and looked on the magic ring; the blue stone turned to deadly white, and she knew er lover false. The spirits that heard the charm rejoiced in the echoes around, the midnight fogs fell damp and thick, but the chill was in her soul; consumption hovered in the mist and crept into her breast.

Her eye was bright, her cheek was fair, but the spell had numbered her days. She dropt like the flower of the field, and passed from the face of the earth. She sleeps beside the maniac's grave, beneath the northern star.—The forester returned.-The abode of her he once loved was desolate-the thoughts of former days resumed their power, the secret spell still worked upon his mind; it haunted him in sleep, it haunted him by day, it was around, unseen, but every where-it stamped his features with a dire deceit, the eye that met avoided him, the hearts of all turned from him, he sought affection but he found it not, he lived unloved, unwept he died; no holy prayers e'er blessed his grave, or bid his troubled spirit rest-his ashes moulder in the wind, the pilgrim shuns the spot, for there the spirits of evil perform their unearthly rites, and frame the spells

of death.