Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry/The Last Lord of Helvellyn
THE LAST LORD OF HELVELLYN.
"An ancient curse still clings to their name."
"It was, I think, in the year seventeen hundred and thirty-three, that, one fine summer evening, I sat on the summit of Rosefoster Cliff, gazing on the multitudes of waves which, swelled by the breeze and whitened by the moonlight, undulated as far as the eye could reach. The many lights, gleaming from Allanbay, were extinguished one by one; the twinklings of remote Saint Bees glimmered fainter and fainter on the Solway; while the villages and mansions on the Scottish coast, from Annand to Kirkcudbright, were perfectly silent and dark, as beseemed their devout and frugal inhabitants. As I sat and thought on the perils I had encountered and braved on the great deep, I observed a low dark mist arise from the middle of the Solway; which, swelling out, suddenly came rolling huge and sable towards the Cumberland shore. Nor was fear or fancy long in supplying this exhalation with sails and pennons, and the busy hum and murmur of mariners. As it approached the cliff on which I had seated myself, it was not without dismay that I observed it become more dark, and assume more distinctly the shape of a barge, with a shroud for a sail. It left the sea, and settled on the beach within sea-mark, maintaining still its form, and still sending forth the merry din of mariners. In a moment the voices were changed from mirth to sorrow; and I heard a sound and outcry like the shriek of a ship's company whom the sea is swallowing. The cloud dissolved away, and in its place I beheld, as it were, the forms of seven men, shaped from the cloud, and stretched black on the beach; even as corses are prepared for the coffin. I was then young, and not conversant with the ways in which He above reveals and shadows out approaching sorrow to man. I went down to the beach, and though the moon, nigh the full and in mid-heaven, threw down an unbroken light—rendering visible mountain and headland and sea, so that I might count the pebbles and shells on the shore—the seven black shadows of men had not departed, and there appeared a space in the middle, like room measured out for an eighth. A strange terror came upon me, and I began to dread that this vision was sent for my warning; for, be assured, Heaven hath many and singular revelations for the welfare and instruction of man. I prayed, and, while I prayed, the seven shadows began to move—filling up the space prepared for another; then they waxed dimmer and dimmer, and then wholly vanished!
"I was much moved; and, deeming it the revelation of approaching sorrow, in which I was to be a sharer, it was past midnight before I could fall asleep. The sun had been some time risen when I was awakened by Simon Forester, who, coming to my bedside, said, 'Richard Faulder, arise, for young Lord William of Helvellyn Hall has launched his new barge on the Solway, and seven of the best and boldest mariners of Allanbay must bear him company to bring his fair bride from Preston Hall—even at the foot of the mountain Criffel; hasten and come, for he sails not, be sure, without Richard Faulder!'
"It was a gallant sight to see a shallop, with her halsers and sails of silk, covered with streamers, and damasked with gold, pushing gaily from the bay. It was gallant, too, to behold the lordly bridegroom, as he stood on the prow, looking towards his true-love's land; not heeding the shout and the song and the music swell with which his departure was hailed. It was gallant to see the maids and the matrons of Cumberland, standing in crowds, on headland and cliff, waving their white hands seaward, as we spread our sails to the wind, and shot away into the Solway, with our streamers dancing and fluttering like the mane of a steed as he gallops against the wind. Proud of our charge, and glorying in our skill, we made the good ship go through the surge as we willed; and every turn we made, and every time we wetted her silken sails, there came shout and trumpet-sound from the shore, applauding the seven merry mariners of Allanbay.
"Helvellyn Hall, of which there is now no stone standing, save an old sun-dial around which herdsmen gather at noon day to hear of old marvels of the Foresters, was an extensive mansion, built in the times when perils from the pirate and the Scot were dreaded, and stood on a swelling knoll, encompassed with wood, visible from afar to mariners. In the centre was a tower, and on the summit of the tower was a seat, and in that seat tradition will yet tell you that the good Lord Walter Forester sat for a certain time, in every day of the year, looking on the sea. The swallows and other birds which made their nests and their roosts on the castle-top became so accustomed to his presence, that they built and sang and brought forth their young beside him; and old men, as they beheld him, shook their heads, and muttered over the ancient prophecy, which a saint, who suffered from persecution, had uttered againt the house of Helvellyn:
'
Let the Lord of Helvellyn look long on the sea—
For a sound shall he hear, and a sight shall he see;
The sight he shall see is a bonnie ship sailing,
The sound he shall hear is of weeping and wailing;
A sight shall he see on the green Solway shore,
And no Lord of Helvellyn shall ever see more.'
"As we scudded swiftly through the water, I looked towards the shore of Cumberland, stretching far and near, with all its winding outline, interrupted with woody promontories; and there I beheld the old Lord Walter of Helvellyn, seated on the topmost tower of his castle, looking towards the Scottish shore. I thought on the dying man's rhyme, and thought on the vision of last night; and I counted the mariners, and looked again on the castle and Lord Walter, and I saw that the fulfilling of the prophecy and the vision was approaching. Though deeply affected, I managed the barge with my customary skill, and she flew across the bay, leaving a long furrow of foam behind. Michael Halmer, an old mariner of Allanbay, afterwards told me he never beheld a fairer sight than the barge that day, breasting the billows; and he stood, warding off the sun with his hands from his fading eyes, till we reached the middle of the bay. At that time, he said, he beheld something like a ship formed of a black cloud, sailing beside us, which moved as we moved, and tacked as we tacked; had the semblance of the same number of mariners, and in every way appeared like the bridegroom's barge! He trembled with dismay, for he knew the spectre shallop of Solway, which always sails by the side of the ship which the sea is about to swallow. It was not my fortune to behold fully this fearful vision; but, while I gazed towards Helvellyn Hall, I felt a dread, and although I saw nothing on which my fears could fix, I remember that a kind of haze or exhalation, resembling the thin shooting of a distant light, floated through the air at our side, which I could not long endure to look upon. The old lord still preserved his position on the tower, and sat gazing towards us, as still and motionless as a marble statue, and with an intensity of gaze like one who is watching the coming of destiny.
"The acclamations which greeted our departure from Cumberland were exceeded by those which welcomed us to the Scottish shore. The romantic and mountainous coast of Colvend and Siddick was crowded with shepherd and matron and maid, who stood as motionless as their native rocks, and as silent too till we approached within reach of their voices, and then such a shout arose as startled the gulls and cormorants from rock and cavern for a full mile. The Scotch are a demure, a careful, and a singular people; and, amid much homeliness of manner, have something of a poetical way of displaying their affections, which they treasure, too, for great occasions, or, as they say, 'daimen times.' There are certain of their rustics much given to the composition of song and of ballad, in which a natural elegance occasionally glimmers among their antique and liquid dialect. I have been told the Lowland language of Scotland is more soft and persuasive than even that of England; and assuredly there was Martin Robson, a mariner of mine in the Mermaid, whose wily Scotch tongue made the hearts of half the damsels of Cumberland dance to their lips. But many of their ballads are of a barbarous jingle, and can only be admired because the names of those whom their authors love and hate, and the names of hill and dale and coast and stream, are interwoven with a ready ease unknown among the rustic rhymes of any other people.
"Preston Hall—the plough has long since passed over its foundation-stones!—was long the residence of a branch of the powerful and ancient name of Maxwell; and such was its fame for generosity that the beggar or pilgrim who went in at the eastern gate empty always came out at the western gate full, and blessing the bounty of the proprietor. It stood at the bottom of a deep and beautiful bay, at the entrance of which two knolls, slow in their swell from the land and abrupt in their rise from the sea, seemed almost to shut out all approach. In former times they had been crowned with slight towers of defence. It was a fairy nook for beauty; and tradition, which loves to embellish the scenes on which Nature has been lavish of her bounty, asserted that the twin hillocks of Preston Bay were formerly one green hill, till a wizard, whose name has not yet ceased to work marvels, cleft the knoll asunder with his wand, and poured the sea into the aperture, laying, at the same time, the foundation-stone of Preston Hall with his own hand.[1] On the sides and summits of these small hills stood two crowds of peasants, who welcomed the coming of Lord William with the sounding of instruments of no remarkable harmony. As this clamorous hail ceased, the melody of maidens' tongues made ample amends for the instrumental discord. They greeted us as we passed with this poetical welcome, after the manner of their country:
THE MAIDENS' SONG.
Maids of Colvend.
Ye maidens of Allanbay, sore may ye mourn,
For your lover is gone, and will wedded return;
His white sail is filled, and the barge cannot stay,
Wide flashes the water—she shoots through the bay.
Weep, maidens of Cumberland, shower your tears salter,
The priest is prepared and the bride's at the altar!
Maids of Siddick.
The bride she is gone to the altar, and far
And in wrath flies gay Gordon of green Lochinvar;
Young Maxwell of Munshes, thy gold spur is dyed
In thy steed, and thy heart leaps in anguish and pride;
The bold men of Annand and proud Niddisdale
Have lost her they loved, and may join in the wail.
Maids of Colvend.
Lord William is come; and the bird on the pine,
The leaf on the tree, and the ship on the brine,
The blue heaven above, and below the green earth,
Seem proud of his presence, and burst into mirth.
Then come, thou proud fair one, in meek modest mood—
The bridal bed's ready—unloosen thy snood!
Maids of Siddick.
The bridal bed's ready; but hearken, high lord!
Though strong be thy right arm, and sharp be thy sword,
Mock not Beatrice Maxwell! else there shall be sorrow
Through Helvellyn's valleys, ere sunrise to morrow:
Away, haste away! Can a gallant groom falter
When the bridal wine's poured and the bride's at the altar!
"During this minstrel salutation the barge floated into the bosom of Preston Bay; and through all its woody links and greenwood nooks the song sounded mellow and more mellow, as it was flung from point to point over the sunny water. The barge soon approached the greensward, which, sloping downwards from the Hall, bordering with its livelier hue the dull deep green of the ocean, presented a ready landing-place. When we were within a lance's length of the shore there appeared, coming towards us from a deep grove of holly, a female figure, attired in the manner of the farmer matrons of Scotland—with a small plaid, or mantle, fastened over her grey lint-and-woollen gown, and a white cap, or mutch, surmounting, rather than covering, a profusion of lyart locks which came over her brow and neck, like remains of winter snow. She aided her steps with a staff, and descending to the prow of the barge, till the sea touched her feet, stretched her staff seaward, and said, with a deep voice and an unembarrassed tone: 'What wouldest thou, William Forster, the doomed son of a doomed house, with Beatrice Maxwell, the blessed child of a house whose name shall live, and whose children shall breathe, while green woods grow and clear streams run? Return as thou camest, nor touch a shore hostile to thee and thine. If thy foot displaces but one blade of grass, thy life will be as brief as the endurance of thy name, which that giddy boy is even now writing on the sand within sea-mark—the next tide will pass over thee, and blot it out for ever and for ever! Thy father, even now watching thy course from his castle-top, shall soon cease to be the warder of his house's destiny; and the Cumberland boor, as he gazes into the bosom of the Solway, shall sigh for the ancient and valiant name of Forster.'
"While this singular speech was uttering I gazed on the person of the speaker, from whom no one who once looked could well withdraw his eyes. She seemed some seventy years old, but unbowed or unbroken by age, and had that kind of commanding look which common spirits dread. Lord William listened to her words with a look of kindness and respect. 'Margery Forsythe,' he said, 'thou couldest have prophesied more fortunately and wisely hadst thou wished it; but thou art a faithful friend and servant to my Beatrice—accept this broad piece of gold, and imagine a more pleasant tale when, with the evening tide, I return with my love to Helvellyn.'
"The gold fell at the old woman's feet, but it lay glittering and untouched among the grass, for her mind and eye seemed intent on matters connected with the glory of her master's house.
"'Friend am I to Beatrice Maxwell, but no servant,' said Margery, in a haughty tone, 'though it's sweet to serve a face so beautiful. Touch not this shore, I say again, William Forster; but it's vain to forbid—the thing that must be must; we are fore-ordained to run our course, and this is the last course of the gallant house of Forster.'
"She then stepped aside, opposing Lord William no longer, who, impatient at her opposition, was preparing to leap ashore. Dipping her staff in the water as a fisher dips his rod, she held it dripping towards the Solway, to which she now addressed herself:—'False and fathomless sea, slumbering now in the sweet summer sun like a new-lulled babe, I have lived by thy side for years of sin that I shall not sum; and every year hast thou craved and yearned for thy morsel, and made the maids and matrons wail in green Galloway and Nithsdale. When wilt thou be satisfied, thou hungry sea? Even now, sunny and sweet as thou seemest, dost thou crave for the mouthful ordained to thee by ancient prophecy, and the fair and the dainty morsel is at hand.'
"Her eyes, dim and spiritless at first, became filled, while she uttered this apostrophe to the sea, with a wild and agitated light—her stature seemed to augment, and her face to dilate with more of grief than joy; and her locks, snowy and sapless with age, writhed on her forehead and temples, as if possessed with a distinct life of their own. Throwing her staff into the sea, she then went into the grove of holly, and disappeared.
"'May I be buried beyond the plummet sound,' said Sam Dacre of Skiddawbeck, 'if I fail to prove if that dame's tartan kirtle will flatten swan-shot,—I never listened to such unblessed language;' and he presented his carbine after her, while William Macgowan, a Galloway sailor, laid his hand on the muzzle, and said:
"'I'll tell thee what, Margery Forsythe has mair forecast in the concerns o' the great deep than a wise mariner ought to despise. Swan-shot, man! She would shake it off her charmed calimanco kirtle as a swan shakes snow from its wings. I see ye're scantly acquaint with the uncannie pranks of our Colvend dame. But gang up to the Boran Point, and down to Barnhourie Bank, and if the crews of two bonnie ships, buried under fifteen fathom of quicksand and running water, winna waken and tell ye whose uncannie skill sunk them there, the simplest hind will whisper ye that Margery Forsythe kens mair about it than a God-fearing woman should. So ye see, Lord William Forster, I would even counsel ye to make yere presence scarce on this kittle coast—just wyse yersel warily owre the salt water again. And true-love's no like a new-killed kid in summer; it will keep, ye see; it will keep. This cross cummer will grow kindly, and we shall come snoring back in our barge, some bonnie moonlight summer night, and carry away my young lady with a sweeping oar and a wetted sail. For if we persist when she resists we shall have wet sarks and droukit hair. Sae ye laugh and listen not? Aweel, aweel, them that will to Couper will to Couper! A doomed man's easily drowned! The thing that maun be maun be! and sic things shall be if we sell ale!'
"These predestinating exclamations were abridged by a long train of bridal guests hurrying from the Hall to receive the bridegroom, who, disregarding all admonition, leaped gaily ashore, and was welcomed with trumpet flourish and the continued sound of the Lowland pipe. He was followed by six of his seven mariners; I alone remained, overawed by the vision I had beheld on the preceding night, by the prophetic words of the sorceress of Siddick, and by that boding forecast of disaster which the wise would do well to regard.
"On all sides people were seated on the rising grounds: the tree-tops, the immemorial resting-places of ravens and rooks, were filled with young men, anxious to see the procession to the chapel of Preston and to hearken the bridal joy; and even the rough and dizzy cliff of Barnhourie Burn, which overlooks the Solway for many miles, had the possession of its summit disputed with its native cormorants and eagles by some venturous schoolboys, who thus showed that love of adventure which belongs to the children of the sea-coast. The sun was in noon when we landed in Preston Bay, and its edge was touching the grassy tops of the western hills of Galloway, when shout above shout, from wood and eminence, the waving of white hands from field and knoll, and the sudden awakening of all manner of clamorous and mirthful melody announced the coming of the bridal crowd. The gates of Preston Hall burst suddenly open; out upon the level lawn gushed an inundation of youths and maidens clad in their richest dresses, and the living stream flowed down to the Solway side. As they approached, a shallop, covered from the masthead to the water with streamers and pennons and garlands, came suddenly from a small anchorage scooped out of the bosom of the garden, making the coming tide gleam to a distance with the gold and silver lavished in its decoration. But my admiration of this beautiful shallop was soon interrupted by the appearance of a lady, who, standing on the ground by the prow of the bride's barge, looked earnestly seaward, and trembled so much that the white satin dress which covered her from bosom to heel, studded and sown and flowered with the most costly stones and metals, shook as if touched by an ungentle wind. Her long tresses, of raven black hair, and which, in the boast of maidenhood of my early days, descended till she could sit upon them, partook of her agitation. Her eyes alone, large and bright, and fringed with long lashes of a black still deeper than that of her hair, were calm and contemplative, and seemed with her mind meditating on some perilous thing. While she stood thus a maiden came to her side, and, casting a long white veil, a present from the bridegroom, over her head, shrouded her to the feet; but the elegance of her form and the deep dark glance of her expressive eyes triumphed over the costly gift, though the fringe was of diamonds and the disastrous tale of the youth who perished swimming over the Solway to his love was wrought, or rather damasked, in the middle. I could have gazed from that hour till this on this beautiful vision; but while I looked there came slowly from the wood a figure of a woman, bent with age or distress to the ground, and entirely covered in a black mantle: she approached the bride unperceived, and lay down at her feet, as a footstool on which she must tread before she could enter the shallop. This was unheeded of many, or of all; for the blessings showered by all ranks on the departing pair, the bustle of the mariners preparing to sail with the tide, which now filled Preston Bay, the sounding of bugle and pipe, and the unremitting rivalry in song and ballad between the mariners in the barges of the bridegroom and bride, successively filled every mind save mine, overclouded then, and as it has ever since been, before some coming calamity. Ballad and song passed over my memory without leaving a verse behind; one song alone, sung by a mariner of Allanbay, and which has long been popular on the coast, interested me much, more I confess from the dark and mysterious manner in which it figured or shadowed forth our catastrophe than from its poetical merit, the last verse alone approaching to the true tone of the lyric.
MICHAEL HALMER'S SONG.
Upon the bonnie mountain side,
Upon the leafy trees,
Upon the rich and golden fields,
Upon the deep green seas,
The wind comes breathing freshly forth—
Ho! pluck up from the sand
Our anchor, and go shooting as
A winged shaft from the land!
The sheep love Skiddaw's lonesome top,
The shepherd loves his hill,
The throstle loves the budding bush,
Sweet woman loves her will;
The lark loves heaven for visiting,
But green earth for her home;
And I love the good ship, singing
Through the billows in their foam.
"My son," a grey-haired peasant said,
"Leap on the grassy land,
And deeper than five fathom sink
Thine anchor in the sand,
And meek and humble make thy heart,
For ere yon bright'ning moon
Lifts her wondrous lamp above the wave
Amid night's lonely noon,
There shall be shriekings heard at sea,
Lamentings heard ashore—
My son, go pluck thy mainsail down,
And tempt the heav'n no more.
Come forth and weep, come forth and pray,
Grey dame and hoary swain—
All ye who have got sons to-night
Upon the faithless main."
"And wherefore, old man, should I turn?
Dost hear the merry pipe,
The harvest bugle winding
Among Scotland's cornfields ripe—
And see her dark-eyed maidens dance,
Whose willing arms alway
Are open for the merry lads
Of bonnie Allanbay?"
Full sore the old man sighed, and said,
"Go bid the mountain wind
Breathe softer, and the deep waves hear
The prayers of frail mankind,
And mar the whirlwind in his might."
His hoary head he shook,
Gazed on the youth and on the sea,
And sadder waxed his look.
"Lo! look! here comes our lovely bride!
Breathes there a wind so rude
As chafe the billows when she goes
In beauty o'er the flood—
The raven fleece that dances
On her round and swan-white neck—
The white foot that wakes music
On the smooth and shaven deck—
The white hand that goes waving thus,
As if it told the brine,
'Be gentle in your ministry,
O'er you I rule and reign'—
The eye that looks so lovely,
Yet so lofty in its sway?
Old man, the sea adores them—
So adieu, sweet Allanbay!"
"During the continuance of this song, an old gentleman of the house of Maxwell, advancing through the press to the barges, said aloud: 'A challenge, ye gallants, a challenge! Let the bridegroom take his merry mariners of England—let the bride take her mariners of old Galloway—push the barges from Preston Bay as the signal-pipe sounds; and a pipe of blood-red wine to a cupful of cold water that we reach Allanbay first.' As the old man finished his challenge hundreds of hats, and bonnets too, were thrown into the air, and the bridegroom, with a smile, took his offered hand and said: 'What! Sir Marmaduke Maxwell, wilt thou brave us too? A pipe of the richest wine to a drink of the saltest brine in the centre of Solway, that the merry lads of Allanbay exceed thee at least by ten strokes of the oar.' The English mariners replied, as is their wont, with a shout, threw aside their jackets and caps, and prepared gladly for the coming contest; nor were the mariners of Siddick and Colvend slow in preparing: they made themselves ready with that silent and sedate alacrity peculiar to that singular people. 'May I never see Skiddaw again,' said William Selby of Derwent, 'nor taste Nancy Grogson's grog, or her pretty daughter's lips, if the fresh-water lads of Barnhourie surpass the salt-water lads of Allanbay!'
"'And for my part,' said Charles Carson, 'in answer to my comrade's vow, may I be turned into a sheldrake, and doomed to swim to doomsday in the lang black lake of Loughmaben, if the powkpuds of Skiddaw surpass the cannie lads of green Galloway!' And both parties, matched in numbers, in strength—of equal years and of similar ability—stood with looks askance on each other, ready to start, and willing to win the bridal boast, and the bride or bridegroom's favour.
"'And now, my sweet bride,' said Lord William, 'shall I help thee into thy barge? Loth am I that thy kinsman's vaunt causes a brief separation. Now guide thy barge wisely and warily,' said he to her helmsman; 'I would rather pay the wine for thy mistress ten thousand-fold than one lock of her raven hair should be put in jeopardy. If thou bringest her harmless into Allanbay, I will give a hundred pieces of gold to thee and thy mates. Shouldst thou peril her in thy folly, come before my face no more.'
"'Peril Beatrice Maxwell, Lord William!' said the Scottish helmsman, with a look of proud scorn; 'my fathers have fought to the saddle-laps in English blood for the men of the house of Maxwell, and I would rather see all who own the surname of Forster sinking in the Solway without one to help them than be the cause of the fair maiden of Preston soiling slipper or snood. I see ye dinna ken the Howatsons of Glenhowan.'
"'I know nought of the Howatsons of Glenhowan,' said the bridegroom, 'but what I am proud and pleased with; therefore ply the oar and manage the sail, for I have men with me who will put you to your might in both.'
"To this conciliating speech the maritime representative of the ancient Howatsons of Glenhowan returned no answer, but, busying himself in his vocation, chanted, as was his wont on going upon any important mission, some fragments of an old ballad, made by one of the minstrels of the house of Maxwell when its glory was at the fullest.
"Give the sail to the south wind, thou mariner bold,
Keep the vessel all stately and steady,
And sever the green grassy sward with her prow,
Where yon lances gleam level and ready."
"An ominous star sits above the bright moon,
And the vessel goes faster and faster;
And see! the changed planet, so lovely e'en now,
Glows like blood, and betokens disaster."
"The moon, thou coward churl—lo! see the swift shafts
All as fleet as the winter snow flying,
And hearken the war-steed! he neighs in his strength,
And tramples the dead and the dying."
And the bark smote the ground, and ashore they all leapt,
With war-shout, and pipe-note, and clangour
Of two-handed claymore and hauberk—and soon
Their foes they consumed in their anger.
All on yon fair shore, where the cowslips bloom thick
And the sea-waves so brightly are leaping,
The sun saw in gladness—the moon saw in death
Three hundred proud Foresters sleeping:
And long shall the Cumberland damosels weep,
Where the sweet Ellenwater is flowan,
The hour the gay lads of Helvellyn were slain
By Lord Maxwell and gallant Glenhowan.
"Ere the song had ceased the bride proceeded to enter the barge, when she perceived at her feet a figure in a black mantle, and scarce refrained from shrieking. 'Margery, what wouldst thou with me, Margery?' she said; 'the cottage thou livest in I have given thee.'
"'Worlds, wealth, and creature comforts are no cares of mine,' said the old domestic of the house of Maxwell. 'I laid me down here, that ere Beatrice Maxwell departs with one of a doomed house she should step over my grey hairs. Have I not said—have I not prayed?'
"'Margery, Margery,' said the bride, 'be silent and be wise.'
"'Are we to stand here, and listen to the idle words of a crazed menial?' said one of the house of Maxwell. 'Aboard, ye gallants, aboard!' And, placing the bride on deck, the barges, urged by oar and sail, darted out of the bay of Preston, while the shout and song of clamouring multitudes followed us far into the ocean.
"The wind of the summer twilight, gentle and dewy, went curling the surface of the water; before us the green mountains of Cumberland rose; behind us we beheld the huge outline of the Scottish hills, while, a full stonecast asunder, the barges pursued their way, and the crews, silent and anxious, had each their hopes of conquering in the contest. As we went scudding away I looked toward the Hall of Helvellyn, and there I beheld on its summit the old lord, with his grey hair, his hands clasped, and his eyes turned intent on the barge which contained his son. I thought on the prophecy and on the vision of the preceding evening, and looked towards the hills of Scotland, now fast diminishing in the distance. At first I thought I saw the waters agitated in the track we had pursued, and, continuing to gaze, I observed the sea, furrowed into a tremendous hollow, following the sinuous course of the barge. I now knew this to be a whirlwind, and, dreading that it would fasten on our sails, I tacked northward—the whirlwind followed also. I tacked southward, and to the south veered the whirlwind, increasing in violence as it came. The last sight I beheld was the sea at our stern, whirling round in fearful undulations. The wind at once seized our sails, turned us thrice about, and down went the barge, headforemost, in the centre of Solway. I was stunned, and felt the cold brine bubbling in my ears, as, emerging from the flood, I tried to swim. Barge, bridegroom, and mariners were all gone. The bride's barge came in a moment to my side, and saved me, and, standing for the coast of Cumberland, spread the tale of sorrow along the shore, where crowds had assembled to welcome us. The old Lord of Helvellyn remained on the castle-top after he had witnessed the loss of his son; and, when his favourite servant ventured to approach, he was found seated in his chair, his hands clasped more in resignation than agony, his face turned to the Solway and his eyes gazing with the deepest intensity, and stiff and dead. The morning tide threw the body of Lord William and those of his six mariners ashore; and when I walked down at day-dawn to the beach I found them stretched in a row on the very spot where the vision had revealed their fate to me so darkly and so surely. Such a tale as this will be often told you among the sea-coast cottages of Cumberland. Young man, be wise, and weigh well the mysterious ways of Providence."
- ↑ Scotland is rife with the labours of wizard and witch. The beautiful green mountain of Criffel, and its lesser and immediate companions, were created by a singular disaster which befell Dame Ailie Gunson. This noted and malignant witch had sustained an insult from the sea of Solway, as she crossed it in her wizard shallop, formed from a cast-off slipper; she, therefore, gathered a huge creelful of earth and rock, and, stride after stride, was advancing to close up for ever the entrance of that beautiful bay. An old and devout mariner who witnessed her approach thrice blessed himself, and at each time a small mountain fell out of the witch's creel; the last was the largest, and formed the mountain Criffel, which certain rustic antiquarians say is softened from "creel fell," for the witch dropped earth and creel in despair.