254 RAMBLES OP A GEOLOGIST. 



cipices behind ; but until the boat arrived, not a single wave 

 dashed over the black rock ; though immediately after the 

 last of the children had been rescued, an immense wreath of 

 foam rose twice a man's height over its topmost pinnacle. 



The old nurse, on her return to the cottage, found the 

 green lady sitting beside the fire. " Mammie," she said, " you 

 have made friends to yourself to-day, who will be kinder to 

 you than your foster-son. I must now leave you. My time 

 is out, and you'll be all left to yourselves ; but I'll have no 

 rest, mammie, for many a twelvemonth to come. Ten years 

 ago, a travelling pedlar broke into our garden in the fruit 

 season, and I sent out our old ploughman, who is now in Ire- 

 land, to drive him away. It was on a Sunday, and every- 

 body else was in church. The men struggled and fought, and 

 the pedlar was killed. But though I at first thought of bring- 

 ing the case before the laird, when I saw the dead man's pack, 

 with its silks and its velvets, and this unhappy piece of green 

 satin (shaking her dress), my foolish heart beguiled me, and 

 I bade the ploughman bury the pedlar's body under our ash 

 tree, in the corner of our garden, and we divided his goods 

 and money between us. You must bid the laird raise his 

 bones, and carry them to the churchyard ; and the gold, which 

 you will find in the little bowl under the tapestry in my room, 

 must be sent to a poor old widow, the pedlar's mother, who 

 lives on the shore of Leith. I must now away to Ireland to 

 the ploughman; and I'll be e'en less welcome to him, mammie, 

 than at the laird's ; but the hungry blood cries loud against 

 us both, him and me, and we must suffer together. Take 

 care you look not after me till I have passed the knowe." 

 She glided away, as she spoke, in a gleam of light; and when 

 the old woman had withdrawn her hand from her eyes, dazzled 

 by the sudden brightness, she saw only a large black gray- 

 hound crossing the moor. And the green lady was never 

 afterwards seen in Scotland. The little hoard of gold pieces, 



