XLVII.

It was but a night, and a midsummer night,
And next morning when rose the red sun,
His sisters in haste their fair bodies bedight,
And, ere the day's work was begun,

They sought for their Connel, for they were undone
If aught should their brother befall:

And first they went straight to the bower in the dean,
For there he of late had been frequently seen;
For Nature he loved, and her evening scene,
To him was the dearest of all.

XLVIII.

And when within view of his bowrak they came,
It lay in the skaddow so still,

They lift up their voices and called his name,

And their forms they shone white on the hill;
When trow you that hallo so erlich and shrill
Arose from those maids on the heath?

It was just as poor Connel most poignant did feel,
As reptiles he loved not of him made a meal,
Just when the misleered and unmannerly eel
Waked him from the slumbers of death.
XLIX.

He opened his eyes, and with wonder beheld
The sky and the hills once again;

But still he was haunted, for over the field
Two females came running amain.

No form but his spouse's remained on his brain;
His sisters to see him were glad ;

But he started bolt upright in horror and fear,

He deem't that his wife and her minions were near,

He flung off his plaid, and he fled like a deer,

And they thought their poor brother was mad.

L.

He 'scaped; but he halted on top of the rock;
And his wonder and pleasure still grew;

For his clothes were not wet, and his skin was unbroke,
But he scarce could believe it was true

That no eels were within; and too strictly he knew,
He was married and buckled for life.

It could not be a dream; for he slept, and awoke;
Was drunken, and sober; had sung, and had spoke ;
For months and for days he had dragged in the yoke
With an unconscientious wife.

LI.

However it was, he was sure he was there,

On his own native cliffs of the Dee.

O never before looked a morning so fair,

Or the sunbeam so sweet on the lea!

The song of the merl from her old hawthorn tree,
And the blackbird's melodious lay,

All sounded to him like an anthem of love,
A song that the spirit of nature did move,

A kind little hymn to their Maker above,
Who gave them the beauties of day.
LII.

So deep the impression was stamped on his brain,
The image was never defaced;

Whene'er he saw riders that gallopped amain,

He darned in some bush till they passed.
At kirk or at market sharp glances he cast,
Lest haply his wife might be there ;
And once, when the liquor had kindled his ee,
It never was known who or what he did see,
But he made a miraculous flight from Dundee,
The moment he entered the fair.

LIII.

But never again was his bosom estranged,
From his simple and primitive fare;
No longer his wishes or appetite ranged

With the gay and voluptuous to share.
He viewed every luxury of life as a snare;

He drank of his pure mountain spring;

He watched all the flowers of the wild as they sprung, He blessed his sweet laverock, like fairy that sung, Aloft on the hem of the morning cloud hung,

Light fanning its down with her wing.

LIV.

And oft on the shelve of the rock he reclined,
Light carolling humoursome rhyme,

Of his midsummer dream, of his feelings refined,
Or some song of the good olden time.

And even in age was his spirit in prime.

Still reverenced on Dee is his name!

His wishes were few, his enjoyments were rife,
He loved and he cherished each thing that had life,
With two small exceptions, an eel and a wife,

Whose commerce he dreaded the same.

COUNTRY DREAMS AND APPARITIONS.

No III.

THE WIFE OF LOCHMABEN.

Nor many years ago, there lived in the ancient royal borough of Lochmaben an amiable and good Christian woman, the wife of a blacksmith named James Neil, whose death gave rise to a singularly romantic story, and finally to a criminal trial at the Circuit-court of Dumfries. The story was related to me by a strolling gipsy of the town of Lochmaben, pretty nearly as follows.

The smith's wife had been for several years in a state of great bodily suffering and debility, which she bore with all resignation, and even cheerfulness, although during the period of her illness she had been utterly neglected by her husband, who was of a loose profligate character, and in every thing the reverse of his wife. Her hours were, however, greatly cheered by the company of a neighbouring widow, of the same devout and religious cast of mind with herself. These two spent most of their time together, taking great delight in each other's society. The widow attended to all her friend's little wants, and often watched by her bed a good part of the night, reading to her out of the Bible and other religious books, and giving every instance of disinterested kindness and attention.

The gallant blacksmith was all this while consoling himself in the company of another jolly buxom quean, of the tinker breed, who lived in an apartment under the same roof with him and his spouse. He seldom visited the latter; but, on pretence of not disturbing her, both boarded and lodged with his swarthy Egyptian. Nevertheless, whenever the two de

vout friends said their evening prayers, the blacksmith was not forgotten, but every blessing besought to rest on his head.

One morning, when the widow came in about the usual hour to visit her friend, she found, to her utter astonishment, that she was gone, though she had been very ill the preceding night. The bed-clothes were cold, the fire on the hearth was gone out, and a part of her daily wearing apparel was lying at the bed-side as usual.

She instantly ran and informed the smith; but he hated this widow, and answered her churlishly, without deigning to look up to her, or so much as delaying his work for a moment to listen to her narrative. There he stood, with his sleeves rolled up to his shoulders, pelting away at his hot iron, and bidding his informant " gang to the devil, for an auld frazing hypocritical jade; an' if she didna find her praying snivelling crony there, to seek her where she saw her last. If she didna ken where she was, how was he to ken?"

The widow alarmed the neighbours, and a general search was instantly set on foot; but, before that time, the body of the lost woman had been discovered floating in the middle of the loch adjoining the town. Few people paid any attention to the unfortunate circumstance. They knew, or believed, that the woman lived unhappily and on bad terms with her husband, and had no doubt that she had drowned herself in a fit of despair; and, impressed with all the horror that country people naturally have of suicide, they refused her the rights of Christian burial. The body was, in consequence, early next morning, tied between two deals, and carried out to the height, several miles to the westward of the town, where it was consigned to a dishonourable grave, being deep buried precisely in the march, or boundary, between the lands of two different proprietors.

Time passed away, and the gossips of Lochmaben were very free both with the character of the deceased and her surviving