Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 6 1888.djvu/174

166 One day the fisherman was absent, and the labourers were pulling down a stack of corn. The poor mermaid watched them weeping, when to her great joy she espied her precious pouch and belt, which had been built in and buried among the sheaves. She caught it, and leapt into the sea, there to enjoy a delicious freedom.—(J. MacLeod, Laxford.)

xv. —.

After the ruin of kingcraft and prelacy in Scotland many gentlemen found the country but little to their taste.

Captain William Ross, of Invercarron, in common with "Sir Randal," and with many more good soldiers, went to push their fortunes in the wars of "the high Germanic." This laird of Invercarron was a tall and very muscular man, and legends about his strength and his courage long lingered in Strathcarron. People thought it a pity that so pretty a fellow as had been their soldier-laird should ever have shed his blood on foreign soil. Captain William Ross fell at last in action, but his fame did not die with him; and many generations later a young Mr. Ross, of Invercarron, felt no little envy of his legendary reputation for strength, size, and beauty. This young man would fain have been declared the tallest, fairest, and strongest man that the family had ever produced; but there were old people in the glen who told him that so far was this from being the case that he would not reach up to the shoulder of the captain who fell on a German battle-field. "That," replied the young man, "remains to be proved." "That you can never prove," was the retort, and at last the boaster determined by fair means or foul to convince himself of his superiority.

At Langwell, on the Oikel, there lived a wizard, and to him young Mr. Ross applied for help. "Could he see his ancestor? Could he measure himself against him?" The wise man undertook to exhibit the dead soldier to his descendant's inquisitive gaze: only Mr. Ross must promise obedience and silence.

They accordingly repaired that night to a flat meadow near the Oikel, where the enchanter, drawing a large circle on the turf, bade