Page:Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry - 1887.djvu/151

Rh swiftness along the surface of the water. This tale, with all the variations which a poetical peasantry readily supply, found its way from cottage to hamlet, and from hamlet to hall. Old men shook their heads, and talked of the exploits of the great fiend by sea and land, and wished that good might happen to Old England from the visit of such a circumnavigator. Others, who were willing to believe that the apparition was Miles Colvine on a coasting voyage, seemed no less ready to confound the maritime recluse with an evil being, who had murdered a whole ship's crew, sunk their ship, and dwelt on the coast of "cannie Cumberland," for the express purpose of raising storms, shaking corn, and making unwedded mothers of half the fair damsels between Sarkfoot and Saint Bees. Several misfortunes of the latter kind, which happened about this time, confirmed this suspicion, and his departure from the coast was as welcome as rain to the farmer after a long drought.

About a fortnight after this event, I happened to be on a moonlight excursion by water, as far as the ruined castle of Comlongan. I was accompanied by an idle friend or two, and, on our return, we allowed the receding tide to carry us along the Cumberland coast, till we came nearly opposite the cottage of Miles Colvine. As we directed our boat to the shelter of a small bank, I observed a light glimmering in the mariner's house; and, landing and approaching closer, I saw plainly the shadows of two persons, one tall and manly, the other slim and sylph-like, passing and repassing on the wall. I soon obtained a fairer view. I saw the mariner himself; his dress, once rude and sordid, was replaced by one of the coarsest materials, but remarkably clean; his beard was removed, and his hair, lately matted and wild, now hung orderly about his neck and temples. The natural colour was black, but it had been changed by grief to snow-white; his look was hale, but sorrowful, and he seemed about forty years of age. The figure of the creature that accompanied him was much too tender and beautiful to last long in a situation so rude and unprotected as the cottage of a fisherman. It was a female, richly dressed, and of a beauty so exquisite, and a look so full of sweetness and grace, that the rude scene around was not wanted to exalt her above all other maidens I had ever seen. She glided about the cottage, arranging the various articles of furniture, and passing two white hands,