Page:Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry - 1887.djvu/209

Rh in his native land. He loosed a little skiff, and, stepping into it, pushed through the surge to the place where I stood, and was in a moment beside me. I could not help gazing, with an eye reflecting wonder and respect, on a face—bold, mournful, and martial, as his was—which had braved so long "the battle and the breeze." He threw across my shoulders a mantle of leopard skin, and said, as he walked towards his little cottage on the rock: "Youth, I promised that mantle to the first one who welcomed me from a voyage of great peril. Take it, and be happier than the giver—and glad am I to be welcomed by the son of my old captain, Randal Forster."

Such were the circumstances under which I became acquainted with Richard Faulder of Allanbay. At his lonely hearth I was afterwards a frequent and welcome guest, and an attentive and wondering auditor to his wild maritime legends, gathered on many an isle and mainland coast; but none of all his stories made a deeper impression on my memory than the tale of "The Last Lord of Helvellyn."