Page:Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry - 1887.djvu/127

Rh while others spoke with joy of his beauty and attainments, and said he was a happy son who had so tender and so prudent a mother.

It happened in the seventh year from my dream that a great curling bonspiel was to be played between the youths and the wedded men of the parish; and a controversy arose concerning the lake on which the game should be decided. It was the middle of December; the winter had been open and green; till suddenly the storm set in, and the lakes were frozen equal to bear the weight of a heavy man in the first night's frost. Several sheets of frozen water were mentioned: ancient tale and ancient belief had given a charm to the Ladye's Lowe which few people were willing to break; and the older and graver portion of the peasantry looked on it as a place of evil omen, where many might meet, but few would part. All this was withstood by a vain and froward youth, who despised ancient beliefs as idle superstitions, traditionary legends as the labour of credulous men; and who, in the pride and vanity of human knowledge, made it his boast that he believed nothing. He proposed to play the bonspiel on the Ladye's Lowe; the foolish young men his companions supported his wish; and not a few among the sedater sort consented to dismiss proverbial fears and to play their game on these ominous waters. I thought it was a sad sight to see so many greyheads pass my threshold, and so many young heads following, to sport on so perilous a place; but curiosity could not be restrained—young and old, the dame and the damsel, crowded the banks of the lake to behold the contest; and I heard the mirth of their tongues and the sound of their curling-stones as I sat at my hearth-fire. One of the foremost was Benjie Spedlands.'

"The unhappy mother had proceeded thus far, when the demented youth, who till now had lain silent and motionless by the side of the lake, uttered a groan, and, starting suddenly to his feet, came and stood beside us. He shed back his long and moistened locks from a burning and bewildered brow, and looking steadfastly in her face for a moment, said, 'Rachel, dost thou know me?' She answered only with a flood of tears, and a wave of her hand to be gone. 'Know me! ay, how can ye but know me, since for me that deadly water opened its lips, and swallowed thy darling up. If ye have have a tongue to curse and a heart