RELICS OF POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS. 



Id 



and the spectacle before her eyes, sank all into the misty confu- 

 sion /of a deep sleep, from whence she awoke to find herself quietly 

 deposited in her own hovel. 



The dryness of her present apparel proved she had not been 

 brought under water as before, and its texture also proved her ad- 

 venture had been no dream. She still wore the petticoat of scar- 

 let cloth and embroidered bodice which had been given to her by 

 Tam Len last night in exchange for her wet garments, now rolled 

 in a bundle beside her. She viewed herself in them with strange 

 admiration, which the screams of her half-famished changeling 

 interrupted ; and other sounds, still more disturbing, claimed her 

 attention. These sounds were the heavy footsteps and rough song 

 of a man in a pedlar's attire, half leaping and half wading to- 

 w^ards the hollow square of rocks which her hovel filled. " Good 

 be wi' ye're door-stane, lucky !" said he, as he crossed it without 

 waiting for the ceremony of an invitation, and before she had time 

 to do more than attempt to hide her rich raiment by wrapping 

 herself in her blue cloak. The chapman sat down beside the three 

 cross wands, which supported her kail-pot over a few dead embers, 

 and asked for a good-will cup. Such visits and demands from 

 wandering chapmen were common then, as they still remain ; but 

 this man's countenance indicated no common temper. His large 

 loose coat hung to his heels without defining his shape ; his hair 

 was coarse and singularly matted over eyes, whose black diamond 

 brightness agreed ill with its murky yellow. Pistols were hid 

 under his pack, and an air of command shewed itself more forci- 

 bly by contrast with his grotesque apparel. He turned his 

 prying eyes round the Carline's hut with fierce greediness, 

 till they rested on the infant in her lap ; and having drank 

 to her " roof tree," he added, " Where gat ye that water-lily, 

 lucky ? It's no like the gay goss hawk ye gat fra' Dougal Caird."^ 

 Mause trembled at that name. Dougal Caird was at that period 

 one of the boldest, handsomest, and most dexterous of the gipsy 

 tribe in Scotland, and practised the various trades of tinker, for- 

 tune-teller, and freebooter, to the terror of all sober men and soli- 

 tary women. She answered, with the courtesy naturally suggest- 

 ed by her fears that he stood in her presence, and professed she 



* A vagabond pedlar or tinker. [See Walter Scott's ballad of " Donald 

 Caird," Ath. vol. 3, p. 199.] 



