Page:Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry - 1887.djvu/217

Rh 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