RELICS OF POPULAR SUPERSTITIO^IS. 



73 



standing at the door. Her old ban-dog, the only protector of her 

 retreat, crouched shivering by her side at this spectacle, instead of 

 springing forth with a ferocious bark, as he would have done at 

 any human visitant. Yet Mause did not tremble, for she had a 

 thread of flax spun by a child on Christmas eve, and a sprig of 

 holly was near her chimney. Taking them both in her hands, she 

 said — In the name of the holy rood, what art thou The 

 stranger replied — ''I am Tam Len, and no harm will befall thee. 

 Give me the water-bucket which should be ready for my feet, and 

 the milk thou owest me ; and sleep in peace." Gay Carline,'^' as 

 Maviso was usually called, cast a bolder eye at her visitor. She 

 knew the pranks of this merry spirit with refractory maidens in 

 Ettrick and Yarrow ; and the long midnight journeys he had 

 given to meddling judges over church-steeples and mountains. 

 Therefore, she deemed some civil hospitalities needful, especially 

 as the little garden in her rocky recess had flourished marvellously 

 under his tillage. Mause filled a wooden basin with pottage in 

 which there were no herbs unfriendly to fairies, and placed it be- 

 fore Tam Len, with an apology for the absence of milk. "Hast 

 thou no better bowl ?" said the courteous spirit. She answered in 

 the negative, but modestly expressed her content, not desiring to 

 accept any household utensil from her associate, though she ap- 

 proved his agriculture, and knew that many holy women in Gallo- 

 way had been safely honoured with his visits. Tam ate eagerly 

 according to his custom, and departed, leaving the door ajar ; but 

 the good wife knew the laws of Faeryism too well to hazard a 

 look, lest she should be transformed. Secure in a calm conscience, 

 and a happy confidence in the " green people," she went to her 

 bed of dry heather, and slept till morning. Then on her first 

 opening of the door, she beheld a crystal cup on the threshold. 

 Strange characters were engraved on the brim, and on the amber 

 base, but the Gray Carline's learning extended to nothing beyond 

 her native language. She put it carefully in her chest, not doubt- 

 ing that it came as miraculously as the cup which Sir William 

 Dunbar's ancestor brouo^ht home from the French Kinp:'s cellar, 

 after his ride thither on an elf-horse, or the still richer cup found 

 by the butler of Edenhall in a fairy-ring. 



It is not wonderful that poor Mause, in her dreary solitude and 



1 



* A good old woman. 



