Christy Scanlon," and by her deathblessing I'll be with you to the last of my life. Hear that now, and come on, all of ye." The dilloskers stood irresolute. The sight of the gold and jewels; the sudden appearance of old Morough, whom they at first feared as a Lepreghaun; and the daring manner of Trevenny, had completely overpowered them. For a moment their passions were stagnant, and Jasper was just about to grapple with Christy, when a pale girl, on whose handsome features present joy appeared to be struggling with the memory of by-gone grief, followed by a tall figure, in the ruddy prime of manhood, glided like a spirit into the hut. A glance from the manly stranger instantly subdued the sturdy Cornishman, and the pale young beauty having taken down the wren-bush from the low roof, and placed it on the floor in front of Christy, began to chant one of the verses which are still used by the merry wren-boys when they "sound for collection along." "On Saint Stephen's day, the little king bird This fearful malediction from the honoured grandchild of the old beach king, poor Onagh, the spendthrift's victim, effectually smoothed the knotted brow of Christy. Meantime Trevenny endeavoured to palliate his guilt, by stating the cause of the uproar. "At last," concluded he, "my little hero said without a stammer, but outright and full as I speak it, that you, even you, Morty Quann, was the roguish nevey he'd been prating about. That was too much, Captain, I could'nt pouch it, to say nought of his beslavering me so you see—” The Cornishman's speech was here cut short by an exclamation of joy from the old man, as he staggered into the arms of Morty -for Morty himself the stranger was— "My preserver! my kind-hearted, brave, forgiven boy," said Morough, "do I indeed owe my life to thee? Bless thee, Morty-bless thee-bless thee!"-" Procure my pardon from Fergus Consadine, uncle," said Quann, bowing to the revered Brehon king, who had just re-appeared," and let Onagh share your blessing as my bride. I shall then be as happy-" “ Thy bride, Morty!" interrupted Morough."We have plighted troth together this night upon the beach," replied Quann. "Twas little she thought I stood breathless at her side, listening to the song she sang, while she stood by the sea's edge, pondering so deeply (upon me perhaps too) that the white foam glimmered upon her brow unheeded. Her words would have won a harder heart than I can boast of, with all my guilt. You shall hear them, uncle. Do you listen also, king Fergus, and prepare both of ye to give my Onagh joy of her reclaimed and penitent spendthrift as the last words melts away on her lips." The moment was critical, and the bashful Onagh instantly placed her hands in those of Morty, and chanted with a faultering voice the following simple rhymes. "I smile by day, for the old man's sake, "My kinsmen say, he was virtue's foe, But what care I, when well I know, Old Fergus listened with tears in his eyes to young Onagh's song, and joined Morough O'Dwyer in a hearty benison on the heads of the plighted ones. The hut then became a scene of joyous uproar. The rude dilloskers pressed around Morty, and loudly welcomed him to his home again. Onagh sat silent and happy, reposing on the bosom of Fergus beneath the wren-bush, while old Sir Morough distributed largesse from his treasure-bag among the beachboys. Even Trevenny was not forgotten by the kind forgiving old man, notwithstanding he had just aggravated his precedent delinquency, by churlishly observing that, "Fortune, in throwing Sir Morough on his native shore, and putting gold in his palm again in his extreme old age, had played the part of the fickle fishwife, who, in a fit of humanity, pitched the mackerel into his natural element, after she had gutted and pickled him." The Cornishman was, however, summoned to approach the board and take his allotted portion of the treasure; but he declined accepting the proffered gift, and turned towards the youth with whom he had entered the hut, a mischievous half-lunatic elf, the eternal cause of sorrow and anger to Trevenny, who patiently endured his manifold misdeeds; "seeing," said he, "that the cursed 'oosbert lost his wits by a blow from my old father's tough staff that was properly levelled at my own head; and if I won't stand by the imp, and bear wi' his folly, who on the wide seas would, I wonder?" The youth was occupied in draining a vessel of meadh, and Jasper urged him to prolong his draught, by roaring this old Cornish drinking-catch in his ear, with all the mirth and carelessness of one in whose presence nothing extraordinary had lately occurred. "Drain the jug, drouthily, Rosy boy, rosy boy, And be not outfaced by brown ale." It's sweet to go with hound' and hawk, But it's sweeter to bound o'er the deep green sea, For the seaboy has then the prayer of good men, The wind is up, and the sail is spread, And the tears drop fast from lovely eyes, But when we come back, there is shout and clap, On a harvest afternoon, (says the relator of these traditions) when the ripe grain, which clothed the western slope of the Cumberland hills, had partly submitted to the sickle, a party of reapers were seated on a small green knoll, enjoying the brief luxury of the dinner hour. The young men lay stretched OLD BALLAD. on the grass: the maidens sat plaiting and arranging their locks into more graceful and seducing ringlets: while three hoary old men sat abreast and upright, looking on the Sea of Solway! which was spread out, with all its romantic variety of headland, and rock, and bay, below them. The mid-day sun had been unusually sultry, accompanied with hot and suffocating rushes of wind; and the appearance of a huge and dark cloud, which hung, like a canopy of smoke and flame over a burning city,-betokened, to an experienced swain, an approaching storm. One of the old reapers shook his head, and combing the remainder snow over his forehead with his fingers, said," Woe's me! one token comes, and another token arises, of tempest and wrath on that darkening water. It comes to my memory like a dream ;-for 1 was but a boy then groping trouts in Ellen water that it was on such a day, some fifty years ago, that the Bonnie Babie Allan, of Saint Bees, was wrecked on that rock, o'er the top of which the tide is whirling and boiling,-and the father and three brethren of Richard Faulder were drowned. How can I forget such a sea! It leaped on the shore, among these shells and pebbles, as high as the mast of a brig; and threw its foam as far as the corn-ricks of Walter Selby's stackyard, and that's a good half-mile." slew so many of the gallant Dacres and While this conversation went on, the clouds had assembled on the summits of the Scottish and Cumbrian mountains, and a thick canopy of them, which hung over the Isle of Man, waxed more ominous and vast. A light, as of a fierce fire-burning, dropt frequent from its bosom,-throwing a sort of supernatural flame along the surface of the water, and shewing distinctly the haven, and houses, and shipping, and haunted castle of the Isle. The old men sat silently gazing on the scene, while cloud succeeded cloud, till the whole congregating vapour, unable to sustain itself longer, stooped suddenly down from the opposing peaks of Criffel and Skiddaw, filling up the mighty space between the mountains, and approach "Ise warrant," interrupted a squat and demure old man, whose speech was a singular mixture of Cumbrian English and Border Scotch,-" Ise warrant, Willie, your memory will be rifer o' the lovely lass of Annanwater, who whomel'd, keel upward, on the hip of the Mermaid rock, and spilt her rare wameful of rare brandy into the thankless Solway. Faith mickle good liquor has been thrown into that punch-bowl; but fiend a drop of grog was ever made out of such a thriftless basin. It will aiblens be long afore such a gude-sending so close to the bosom of the ocean, comes to our coast again. There was Saunders Macmichael was drunk between yule and yule-for by-" "Waes me, well may I remember that duleful day," interrupted the third bandsman: "it cost me a fair sonmy youngest and my best-I had seven once-alas, what have I now-three were devoured by that false and unstable water-three perished by the sharp swords of those highland invaders, who as to leave room alone for the visible flight of the seamew and cormorant. The water-fowl, starting from the sea, flew landward in a flock, fanning the waves with their wings, and uttering that wild and piercing scream, which distinguishes them from all other fowls, when their haunts are disturbed. The clouds and darkness encreased, and the bird on the rock, the cattle in the fold, and the reapers in the field, all looked upward, and seaward, expecting the coming of the storm. "Benjamin Forster," said an old reaper to me, as I approached his side, and stood gazing on the sea-" I counsel thee, youth, to go home, and shelter these young hairs beneath thy mother's roof. The mountains have covered their heads and hearken, too,-that hollow moan running among the cliffs! There is a voice of mourning, my child, goes along the seacliffs of Solway before she swallows up the seafaring man. Seven times have I heard that warning voice in one season-and it cries, woe to the wives and the maids of Cumberland!" On the summit of a knoll, which swelled gently from the margin of a small beck or rivulet, and which was about a dozen yards apart from the main body of the reapers-sate a young Cumbrian maiden, who seemed wholly intent on the arrangement of a profusion of nut-brown locks, which descended, in clustering masses, upon her back and shoulders. This wilderness of ringlets owed, apparently, as much of its curling elegance to nature as to art, and flowed down on all sides with a profusion rivalling the luxuriant tresses of the madonas of the Roman painters. Half in coquetry, and half in willingness to restrain her tresses under a small fillet of green silk, her fingers, long, round, and white, continued shedding and disposing of this beautiful fleece. At length, the locks were fastened under the fillet -a band denoting maidenhood-and her lily-looking hands, dropping across each other in repose from their toil, allowed the eye toadmire a smooth and swan-white neck, which presented one of those natural and elegant sinuous lines, that sculptors desire so much to communicate to marble. Amid all this sweetness and simplicity, there appeared something of rustic archness and coquetry; but it was a kind of natural and born vanity, of which a little gives a grace and joyousness to beauty.Those pure creations of female simplicity, which shine in pastoral specula tions, are unknown among the ruddy and buxom damsels of Cumberland. The maritime damsels of Allenbay are not unconscious of their charms, or careless about their preservation; and to this sweet maiden nature had given so much female tact, as enabled her to know, that a beautiful face, and large dark hazel eyes, have some influence among men.-When she had wreathed up her tresses to her satisfaction, she began to cast around her such glances, suddenly shot and as suddenly withdrawn-as would have been dangerous, concentrated on one object, but which, divided with care, even to the fractional part of a glance, among several hinds, infused a sort of limited joy, without exciting hope. Indeed, this was the work of the maiden's eyes alone, for her heart was employed about its own peculiar care, and its concern was fixed on a distant and different object. She pulled from her bosom a silken case, curiously wrought with the needle. A youth sat on the figured prow of a bark, and beneath him a mermaid swam on the green silken sea, waving back her long tresses with one hand, and supplicating the young seaman with the other. This singular production seemed the sanctuary of her triumphs over the hearts of men. She began to empty out its contents in her lap, and the jealousy of many a Cumbrian maiden, from Allanbay to St. Bee's-head, would have been excited by learning whose loves these emblems represented. There were letters expressing the ardour of rustic affection-locks of hair, both black and brown, tied up in shreds of silk,-and keepsakes, from the magnitude of a simple brass pin, watered with gold, to a massy broach of price and beauty. She arranged these primitive treasures, and seemed to ponder over the vicissitudes of her youthful affections.. Her eyes, after lending a brief scrutiny to each keepsake and symbol, finally fixed their attention upon a brooch of pure gold as she gazed on it, she gave a sigh, and looked seaward, |