RELICS OF POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS. 



like Lord Soulis at Nine Stane Rig, or beguiled like the fair Janet 

 on-Broora-hilL Every week a web of fair linen, a basket of rare 

 fish, and sometimes a keg of no invisible or ethereal spirit, was 

 deposited on her threshold ; but no good fairy had yet sent her a 

 new cambric curch.^ Satan, more powerful than Tarn Len or 

 John Knox, determined her to hazard one visit to the Martinmas 



tryst at , and there to purchase some choice snuff, a bible, 



and a curch. The day was fine, the purchases made with a piece 

 of " braid gold" from the pitcher ; and though her absence had 

 been two hours in length, the infant smiled as if it had been new- 

 ly fed, and its thin curls of white flossy hair had just been combed. 

 But her punishment begun before midnight. Tarn Len suddenly 

 entered her hovel with glaring eyes ; and clasping her with hands 

 that seemed iron cold, leaped at once from the rocks, to which he 

 dragged the shrieking foster nurse, into the lake below. 



There was no instant for thought or struggle. Though he 

 dived only for ten seconds, strange sounds had begun to ring in 

 Mause's ears, and colours of marvellous brilliance floated before 

 her eyes. When she emerged again from the water, they seemed 

 to behold such wonders as the diving-bell is said to have revealed 

 to an adventurous Manksman. She thought herself in a spacious 

 room propped by pillars of crystal not inferior to diamonds, and 

 walls embossed in lare figures, with mother-of-pearl and shells of 

 all hues. Clusters that shown in the light reflected from a lamp 

 like the moon in the various tints of topazes, emeralds, rubies, and 

 pearls, hung loose from the roof and on the walls ; even the floor 

 had a pavement gleaming like polished porphyry ; and a large 

 jasper table stood in the centre, with a sofa near it, on which lay 

 a woman of exquisite beauty. The dazzled and bewildered cotter 

 remembered all she had ever heard of water-kelpies or mer- 

 maids ;f and doubted not that she beheld either ISTic Nevin her- 

 self, or the elf of Colonsay.J The Beauty wore round her neck 

 a row of fine coral, which confirmed her first surmise, and Tam 

 Len, who stood by her side, prevented all others, by commanding 

 her to use her skill in curing the sick lady. Mause was confound- 



* A matron's cap or hood, worn in Scotland. 



f She might have remembered the Nun of Dryberg, who dwelt fifty years 

 in an unseen retreat. 



t The tales preserved in the Advocate's Library, dated 1680. A kid's 

 foot and a left shoe might have been useful on this occasion. 



