LIONEL LACKLAND. !233 



modelled on both ; thus the poor people retain a jumble of 

 tradition, which is difficult to disconnect from the dreams of 

 either Druid, Pagan, or Christian. The "Kornuath Keth" have 

 their charmed stones, wands, rings, and braids; Brownies, 

 Spizzies, and Podrocks. The watery mistletoe is still cut with 

 mysterious ceremony, though not with the golden hook or knife; 

 " The Festival of Flowers," from the " Flora" of the Romans ; 

 ** the Blessing-day," and the " Galuan," or the " eve of light and 

 joy," with a host of other strange observances too numerous to 

 detail. But among all their festivities, that of the " furry" held 

 on ** Goat's-moor" was one of the happiest, and perhaps the most 

 ancient. 



The "furry," or parish wake, is to be traced as far back 

 as the Saxons, who instituted it as a religious ceremony. The 

 furry was held on " Goat's-moor," a wild, uncultivated waste, 

 covered with short moss or peat; on one side the moor was 

 bounded by black, shaking bogs; not a house or tree was visible 

 for miles. The eye was interrupted only by a group or two of 

 large Druidical stones; in the dim twilight, asthe traveller wended 

 his solitary way over the heath, he might have imagined them 

 the mighty shades of past ages, hovering over the sacred spots of 

 their religious ritual. 



It was on a day in the beginning of June, the air sparkling 

 like a mirror with the reflected rays of the culminating sun, 

 burning in the blue laughing sky, when crowds of persons of all 

 classes, dressed in their gayest attire, were hastening over rock 

 and dell, and round on every side in happy exultation of the 

 festivities of the " furry" on the wide *' Halgaver." Not a 

 breath of wind brushed off the sea; even the light duck "sky 

 scraper" on the " top masts" fluttered but a moment, and then 

 dropped lazily against the slender " fore-top," peering with their 

 silken pennons into the light grey sky. It was a sweltering, 

 burning, gaspingly-hot day, and well I remember it, though I 

 would, if possible, forget it, as a lost page in my life. It cannot 

 be. There was the rough, leather-faced " tar," swearing it was as 

 fiery as the Tropics; the weather-beaten fisherman, shuffling 

 along with his ruddy, laughing " spalleen" (daughter), her lover 

 roaring and talking by turns, now cracking his scurvy jokes on 

 the more quiet and grave in the motley groups, then flourishing 

 his pliant baz (staff") in recognition of some galloping cavalier, 

 mounted on his long, shaggy-haired pony. 



On that eventful morning, although my mind was bewildered 

 with suspicions which my dreams had magnified into the most 

 horrible events, forced on by a supernatural compulsion, I 

 startled like a guilty thing from my bed, even before the merry 

 birds had carolled their first note of praise. T had to meet 

 Ellen ; to triumph over Stratton — it was sufficient — with the 

 most coquettish care did I arrange my dress ; and if my face 

 looked paler than usual, and my long chesnut locks hung down 

 more wild and negligent, still (I remember) it was with a feeling 



