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means of study, grew by degrees such a man and such a poet as the Queen's Wake proclaims him to be. Endowed by nature with a rich and lovely imagination-a heart full of all the finest sensibilities and an understanding at once acute and profound-and having lived for many years the most poetical of lives, in one of the most poetical of regions, it was no wonder that the Ettrick Shepherd should have become a deep and graceful poet of pastoral existence. That a man such as he is should have lived among the peasantry of his native country, in many different districts of its soil, always mixing with them on terms of apparent equality, and in the spirit of real sympathy, without laying up vast stores of knowledge concerning them, and all that belongs to their life, entirely inaccessible to any author moving in a higher order of society-was evidently impossible. There are few mountains in Scotland from whose summit the shepherd has not seen the sun rise and few glens, however lonely and sequestered, in whose bosom he has not tasted the hospitality of cot or sheiling. They must know little of Scotland, and nothing of the Ettrick Shepherd, who doubt that every where he was welcome. With wisdom for the old, and wit for the young-with hoary legends for the ingle nook-and all the magic of romance and poetry for the greenwood tree-wherever he arrived, for the first time, he excited admirationand every where his second coming made a holiday. Of the treasures accumulated during all his wanderings, he has now laid a portion before us in these unvarnished Tales. They are written, as we have said, with the utmost simplicity-they breathe the very spirit of the man that tells them-and they reveal so many new and delightful particulars concerning the whole domestic economy of our peasantry, that we are sure they will be read by every one that has any love for Scotland, or any curiosity respecting the manners of her children-with an interest different, indeed, in kind, but scarcely inferior in degree, to that with which they have all read the sketches of homely Scottish life in the works of the Ettrick Shepherd's best friend and patron, the author of Waverley.

The stories are very numerous, and turn upon very different sorts of subjects; but it would be very difficult

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to say which of them are the bestthe gay or the serious-the tales of superstitious terror-or simple pathos or village wooing-or of comic adventure by flood and field.” All are excellent in their way; so we shall content ourselves with giving a single extract, and conclude with assuring our readers, that if they relish what we quote, they will find 700 neatly and closely printed pages of matter equally interesting, though generally of a gayer character, in these two volumes.

Our extract shall be from one of the longest tales in the first volume, entitled, "Basil Lee." The hero is a wandering old soldier, from Ettrick, who lands, after the American war, on one of the Hebrides, and narrates all that he saw and heard on his route through the Highlands towards his native place. We should, perhaps, have preferred giving some part of "the Love Adventures of Mr George Cochrane," which we regard as by far the best of the Tales-but, on examination, we found that any one of his adventures would have filled too large a space in our pages.

"I staid and sauntered about that island a

month, and never in my life was in such a curious country, nor among so curious a people. They know all that is to happen called the second sight. They have power by reason of a singular kind of divination over the elements, and can stop the natural progress of them all save the tides. They are a people by themselves, neither Highlanders nor Lowlanders, at least those of Uig are, and have no communication with the rest of the world; but with the beings

of another state of existence they have fretheir stories of hobgoblins, and water spirits, quent intercourse. I at first laughed at but after witnessing a scene that I am going to describe, I never disbelieved an item of any thing I heard afterwards, however far out of the course of nature it might be. I am now about to relate a story which will not be believed. I cannot help it. If it was any optical illusion, let those account for it who can. I shall relate what I saw as nearly as I can recollect, and it was not a scene to be easily forgotten.

"On the banks of this Loch-Rog there stands a considerably large village, and above that the gentleman's house, who rents all the country around from Lord Seaforth, and lets it off again to numberless small

tenants. Between his house and the vil

lage there lies a straight green lane, and above the house on a rising ground, stand a great number of tall stones that have been raised in some early age, and appear at a distance like an army of tremendous giants. One day a party of seven from on board the

Swallow was invited to dine with this gentleman. We went out a-shooting all the forenoon, and towards evening, on our return, we found all the family in the most dreadful alarm, on account of something that an old maiden lady had seen which they called Faileas More; (the great shadow) and which they alleged was the herald of terrible things, and the most dismal calamities. The villagers were likewise made acquainted with it, and they were running howling about in consternation.

"The family consisted of an old man and his sister; a young man and his wife, and two children: the old man and the two ladies believed the matter throughout, but the young man pretended with us to laugh at it, though I could see he was deeply concerned at what he had heard. The vision was described to us in the following extraordinary manner.

"The Great Shadow never comes alone. The next morning after is M'Torquille Dhu's Visit. The loss of all the crops, and a grievous death in the island, invariably succeed to these. The apparitions rise sometimes in twelve, sometimes in three years, but always on the appearance of An Faileas More, Todhail Mac Torcill takes place next morning between day-break and the rising of the sun. A dark gigantic shade is seen stalking across the loch in the evening, which vanishes at a certain headland; and from that same place the next morning, at the same degree of lightness, a whole troop of ghosts arise, and with Mac Torcill Dhu (Black M'Torquille) at their head, walk in procession to the standing stones, and there hide themselves again in their ancient graves.

"As the one part of this story remain ed still to be proved, every one of us determined to watch, and see if there was any resemblance of such a thing. But the most extraordinary circumstance attending it was, that it could only be seen from the upper windows of that house, or from the same height in the air, a small space to the eastward of that; and that from no other point on the whole island had it ever been discovered that either of the visions had been

seen.

"We testified some doubts that the morning might not prove clear, but the old man, and the old maiden lady, both assured us that it would be clear, as the morning of M Torquille's Visit never was known to be otherwise. Some of us went to bed with our clothes on, but others sat up all night, and at an early hour we were all sitting at the windows, wearying for the break of day. The morning at length broke, and was perfectly clear and serene, as had been predicted. Every eye was strained toward the spot where the Great Shade had vanished, and at length the young gentleman of the house said, in a tone expressing great awe, Yonder they are now.' I could not discern any thing for the space of a few se

conds, but at length, on looking very nar rowly toward the spot, I thought I perceived something like a broad shadow on the shore; and, on straining my sight a little more, it really did appear as if divided into small columns like the forms of men. It did not appear like a cloud, but rather like the shadow of a cloud; yet there was not the slightest cloud or vapour to be seen floating in the firmament. We lost sight of it for a very short space, and then beheld it again coming over the heath, above the rocks that overhung the shore. The vision was still very indistinct, but yet it had the appearance of a troop of warriors dressed in greenish tartans with a tinge of red. The headland where the apparition first arose, was distant from us about half a mile,they appeared to be moving remarkably slow, yet notwithstanding of that, they were close upon us almost instantly. We were told that they would pass in array immediately before the windows, along the green lane between us and the back of the village; and seeing that they actually approached in that direction, Dr Scott, a rough, rash, intrepid fellow, proposed that we should fire at them. I objected to it, deeming that it was a trick, and that they were all fellow creatures; for we saw them now as distinctly as we could see any body of men in the gray of the morning. The young man however assuring us, that it was nothing human that we saw, I agreed to the proposal; and as they passed in array immediately before the windows, we pointed all the eight loaded muskets directly at them, and fired on this mysterious troop all at once: but not one of them paused, or turned round his head. They all of them held on with the same solemn and ghostlike movement, still continuing in appearance to be walking very slow, yet some way they went over the ground with unaccountable celerity; and when they approached near to the group of tall obelisks, they rushed in amongst them, and we saw no more, save a reeling flicker of light that seemed to tremble through the stones for a moment.

66 They appeared to be a troop of warriors, with plaids and helmets, each having a broad targe on his arm, and a long black lance in the other hand; and they were led on by a tall figure in black armour, that walked considerably a-head of the rest. Some of our people protested that they saw the bare skulls below the helmets, with empty eye-sockets, and the nose and lips wanting; but I saw nothing like this. They appeared to me exactly like other men; but the truth is, that I never saw them very distinctly, for they were but a short time near us, and during that time, the smoke issuing from the muskets intervened, and owing to the dead calm of the morning, made us see them much worse. All the people of the village were hid in groups within doors, and engaged in some rite which I did not witness, and cannot describe; but they took

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great umbrage at our audacity in firing at their unearthly visitors, and I believe there was not one among us, not even the regard less Dr Scott, who was not shocked at what had been done.

"I make no pretensions to account for this extraordinary phenomenon, but the singular circumstance of its being visible on ly from one point, and no other, makes it look like something that might be accounted for. I can well excuse any who do not believe it, for if I had not seen it with my own eyes, I never would have believed it. But of all things I ever beheld for wild sublimity, the march of that troop of apparitions excelled-not a day or a night hath yet passed over my head, on which I have not thought with wonder and awe on the Visit of M Torquille.

"From that time forth, as long as I re mained in Lewis, I considered myself in the country of the genii, and surrounded with spiritual beings that were ready to start up in some bodily form at my side, whenever they had a mind. Such influence had the vision that I had seen over my mind, and so far was it beyond my comprehension, that I grew like one half crazed about spirits, and could think or speak about nothing else. For a whole week I lingered about the shores to see the mermaid; for I was assured by the people, that they were very frequently to be seen, though they confessed that the male as often appeared as the female. They regarded her as a kind of seaspirit, and ominous, in no ordinary degree, to the boatmen and fishers, but yet they confessed that she was flesh and blood, like other creatures, and that she had long hair, and a face and bosom so beautiful, that their language had no words to describe them. I was actually in love with them, and watched the creeks as anxiously as ever a lover did his mistress's casement; and often when I saw the seals flouncing on the rocks at a distance, I painted them to myself as the most delicate and beautiful mermaids, but on coming near them, was always disappointed, and shocked at the ugly dog's heads that they set up to me; so that after all, I was obliged to give up my search after mermaids.

"They told me of one that fell in love with a young man, named Alexander M'Leod, who often met her upon the shore, at a certain place which they showed me, and had amorous dalliance with her; but he soon fell sick and died, and when she came to the shore, and could no more find him, she cried one while, and sung another, in the most plaintive strains that ever were heard. This was the popular account; but there was an old man told me, who heard her one evening, and watched her, from a concealment close beside her, all the time she was on shore, that she made a slight humming noise like that made by a kid, not when it bleats out, but when it is looking round for its dam, and bleating

with its mouth shut; and this was all the sound that she made, or that he believed she was able to make. I asked why he did not go to her ? but he answered in his own language, that he would not have gone to her for all the lands of the Mackenzie.

"M'Leod, when on his death-bed, told his friends of all that had passed between them, and grievously regretted having met with her. He said they never met but she clasped her arms around him, and wished to take him into the sea; but that it was from no evil intent, but out of affection, thinking that he could not live more than she, if left upon dry land. When asked if he loved her; he said that she was so beautiful he could not but love her, and would have loved her much better if she had not been so cold; but he added, that he believed she was a wicked creature. If the young man could imagine all this without any foundation, people may imagine after what they list; for my part, I believed every word of it, though disappointed of meeting with her.

"I was equally unsuccessful in my endeavours to see the water horse, a monster that inhabited an inland lake, of whom many frightful stories were told to me; but in my next attempt at an intercourse with the spirits that inhabit that dreary country, I had all the success that I could desire.

"I was told of an old woman who lived in a lone sheiling, at the head of an arm of the sea, called Loch Kios, to whom a ghost paid a visit every night. I determined to see the place, and to tarry a night with the old woman, if possible. Accordingly, I travelled across the country by a wild and pathless rout, and came to her bothy at the fall of night, and going in, I sat down, feigning to be very weary, and unable to move farther. We did not understand a word of each other's language, and consequently no conversation, save by signs, could pass beween us. I found a miserable old shrivelled creature, rather neatly dressed for that country, but manifestly deranged somewhat in her intellects.

"Before I entered, I heard her singing some coronach or dirge, and when I went in, I found her endeavouring to mend an old mantle, and singing away in a wild unearthly croon; so intent was she on both, that she scarcely lifted her eyes from her work when I went toward her, and when she did, it was not to me that she looked, but to the hole in the roof, or to the door by which I entered. The sight affected me very much, and in all things that affect me I become deeply interested. I heard that she was speaking to herself of me; for I knew the sound of the word that meant Englishman, but it was not with any symptoms of fear or displeasure that she seemed to talk of me, but merely as a thing that, being before her eyes, her tongue mentioned as by rote.

"The story that prevailed of her was,

that being left a widow with an only son, then a child at the breast, she nourished him; he became a man; and the love and affection that subsisted between them was of no ordinary nature, as might naturally be supposed. He was an amiable and enterprising young man; but going out to the fishing once with some associates to the Saint's Islands, he never returned, and there were suspicions that he had been foully murdered by his companions, the weather having been so mild that no accident could have been supposed to have happened at sea. There were besides many suspicious circumstances attending it, but no proof could be led. However, the woman hearing that she had lost her darling son, and only stay on earth, set no bounds to her grief, but raved and prayed, and called up on his name; conjuring him by every thing sacred to appear to her, and tell her if he was happy, and all that had befallen to him. These continued conjurations at length moved the dead to return. The spirit of her son appeared to her every night at midnight, and conversed with her about the most mysterious things-about things of life and death-the fates of kingdoms and of men; and of the world that is beyond the grave she was happy in the communion, and abstracted from all things in this world beside.

"Such was the unearthly tale that was told in the country of this rueful old creature, and made me resolve to visit her before I left the island; but I could not procure a man in all the district of Uig to accompany me that could speak both languages; for, except the minister and his wife, and one taxman and his family, there was not one in the district, which contained 3000 inhabitants, that could speak the English language, or were book-learned. I procured a young lad to be my guide, named Malcolm Morison, but he having gathered something of my intentions before we left the banks of Loch Rog, would on no consideration accompany me into the cot, but left me as soon as we came in sight of it. I no sooner beheld the object of my curiosity, than I thought her crazy, and that the story might have arisen from her ravings. Still she was an interesting object to contemplate; and resolving to do so for the night, I tried by signs to make her understand that I was a traveller fatigued with walking, and wished to repose myself in her cottage until next morning; but she regarded me no more than she would have done a strayed cat or dog that had come in to take shelter with her. There was one sentence which she often repeated, which I afterward understood to be of the following import, God shield the poor weary Saxon;' but I do not know how to spell it in Earse. I could likewise perceive, that for all the intentness with which she was mending the mantle, she was coming no speed, but was wasting cloth endeavouring to shape a piece

suiting to the rent, which she was still making rather worse than better. It was quite visible that either she had no mind, or that it was engaged in something widely different from that at which her hands were employed.

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She did not offer me any victuals, nor did she take any herself, but sat shaping and sewing, and always between hands singing slow melancholy airs, having all the wildness of the native airs of that wild and primitive people. Those that she crooned were of a solemn and mournful cast, and seemed to affect her at times very deeply.

Night came on, and still she gave herself no concern at all about me. She made no signs to me either to lie down and rest in the only couch the hovel contained, or to remain, or to go away. The fire sent forth a good deal of smoke, but neither light nor heat; at length, with much delay and fum. bling, she put some white shreds of moss into a cruise of oil, and kindled it. This threw a feeble ray of light through the smoke, not much stronger than the light of a glow-worm, making darkness scarcely visible, if I may use the expression.

The woman, who was seated on a dry sod at the side of the fire, not more than a foot from the ground, crossed her arms upon her knees, and laying her head on them, fell fast asleep. I wrapt myself in my officer's cloak, and threw myself down on the moss couch, laying myself in such a position that I could watch all her motions as well as looks. About eleven o'clock she awoke, and sat for some time moaning like one about to expire; she then kneeled on the sod seat, and muttered some words, waving her withered arms, and stretching them upward, apparently performing some rite, either of necromancy or devotion, which she concluded by uttering three or four feeble howls.

When she was again seated I watched her features and looks, and certainly never before saw any thing more unearthly. The haggard wildness of her features; the anxious and fearful way in which she looked about and about, as if looking for one that she missed away, made such an impression on me that my hairs stood all on end, a feeling that I never experienced before, for I had always been proof against superstitious terrors. But here I could not get the better of them, and wished myself any where else. The dim lamp, shining amidst smoke and darkness, made her features appear as if they had been a dull yellow, and she was altogether rather like a ghastly shade of something that had once been mortal than any thing connected with humanity.

It was apparent from her looks that she expected some one to visit her, and I became firmly persuaded that I should see a ghost, and hear one speak. I was not afraid of any individual of my own species; for, though I had taken good care to conceal

them from her for fear of creating alarm, I had two loaded pistols and a short sword under my cloak; and as no one could enter without passing my couch by a very narrow entrance, I was sure to distinguish who or what it was.

I had quitted keeping my eyes upon the woman, and was watching the door, from which I thought I could distinguish voices. I watched still more intensely; but, hearing that the sounds came from the other side, I moved my head slowly round, and saw, apparently, the corpse of her son sit ting directly opposite to her. The figure was dressed in dead-clothes; that is, it was wrapt in a coarse white sheet, and had a napkin of the same colour round its head. This was raised up on the brow, as if thrust up recently with the hand, discovering the pale stedfast features, that neither moved eye-lid nor lip, though it spoke in an audible voice again and again. The face was not only pale, but there was a clear glazed whiteness upon it, on which the rays of the lamp falling, shewed a sight that could not be looked on without horror. The winding sheet fell likewise aside at the knee, and I saw the bare feet and legs of the same bleached hue. The old woman's arms were stretched out towards the figure, and her face thrown upwards, the features meanwhile distorted as with ecstatic agony. My senses now became so bewildered, that I fell into a stupor, like a trance, without being able to move either hand or foot. I know not how long the apparition staid; for the next thing that I remember was being reluctantly awakened from my trance by a feeble cry which I heard through my slumber repeated several times. I looked, and saw that the old miserable creature had fallen on her face, and was grasping in feeble convulsions the seat where the figure of her dead son had so lately reclined. My compassion overcame my terror; for she seemed on the last verge of life, or rather sliding helplessly from time's slippery precipice, after the thread of existence by which she hung had given way. I lifted her up, and found that all her sufferings were over -the joints were grown supple, and the cold damps of death had settled on her hands and brow. I carried her to the bed from which I had risen, and could scarcely believe that I carried a human body-it being not much heavier than a suit of clothes. After I had laid her down, I brought the lamp near, to see if there was any hope of renovation-she was living, but that was all, and, with a resigned though ghastly smile, and a shaking of the head, she expired.

“I did not know what to do; for the night was dark as pitch; and I wist not where to fly, knowing the cot to be surrounded by precipitous shores, torrents, and winding bays of the sea; therefore all chance of escape until day light was utterly impossible; so I resolved to trim the lamp, and keep my

place, hoping it would not be long till day.

"I suppose that I sat about an hour in this dismal place, without moving or changing my attitude, with my brow leaning upon both my hands, and my eyes shut, when I was aroused by hearing a rustling in the bed where the body lay. On looking round, I perceived with horror that the corpse was sitting upright in the bed, shaking its head as it did in the agonies of death, and stretching out its hands towards the hearth. I thought the woman had been vivified, and looked steadily at the face, but I saw that it was the face of a corpse still, for the eye was white, being turned upward and fixed in the socket, the mouth was open, and all the other features immoveably fixed for ever. Seeing that it continued the same motion, I lifted the lamp and looked fearfully round, and there beheld the figure I had so recently seen, sitting on the same seat, in the same attitude, only having its face turned toward the bed.

I could stand this no longer, but fled stumbling out at the door, and ran straight forward. I soon found myself in the sea, and it being ebb tide, I fied along the shore like a deer pursued by the hounds. It was not long till the beach terminated, and I came to an abrupt precipice washed by the sea. I climbed over a ridge on my hands and knees, and found that I was on a rocky point between two narrow friths, and farther progress impracticable.

I had now no choice left me; so, wrapping myself in my cloak, I threw me down in a bush of heath, below an overhanging cliff, and gave up my whole mind to amazement at what I had witnessed. Astonished as I was, nature yielded to fatigue, and I fell into a sound sleep, from which I did not awake till about the rising of the sun. The scene all around me was frightfully wild and rugged, and I scarce could persuade myself that I was awake, thinking that I was still struggling with a dreadful dream. One would think this was a matter easily settled, but I remember well, it was not so with me that morning. I pulled heath, cut some parts of it off, and chewed them in my mouth ;-rose,-walked about, and threw stones into the sea, and still had strong suspicions that I was in a dream.The adventures of the preceding night dawned on my recollection one by one, but these I regarded all as a dream for certain; and it may well be deemed not a little extraordinary, that to this day, if my oath were taken, I declare I could not tell whether I saw these things in a dream, or in reality. My own belief leaned to the former, but every circumstance rather tended to confirm the latter; else, how came I to be in the place where I was.

I scrambled up among the rocks to the westward, and at length came to a small footpath which led from the head of the one bay to the other; and following that, it

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