Page:Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry - 1887.djvu/238

234 with a sense of danger. It was in vain: the bride and bridegroom departed; while Judith, covering, or rather shrouding herself in her mantle, and turning her face from the river, sat as mute and as still as a statue; a slight convulsive shudder was from time to time visible.

"The young pair reached the Annan, and attempted to pass over the pool called the Deadman's Plump; the dancing and merriment, which had sustained a brief remission, had recommenced, when, far above the din of the dance and the music, one shriek, and then another, was heard in the direction of the river. 'Hearken the shout!' said one rustic; 'the bridegroom is fairly over the water now—then, hey, play up "The Runaway Bride. 'Alas!' answered another peasant, 'yon is not the cry of pleasure, but the shriek of agony. My kale-yard to the Johnstone's land, but they are fallen into the Deadman's Plump, and Judith's prophecy 's true.' The hall-door seemed much too narrow for the multitude who rushed to get out. The shrieks were repeated, and, mingling with the shrieks, and at last o'ermastering them, was heard the downward dash of Annanwater, which, swollen suddenly with distant rains, descended from the hills with all its increase of waters, lifting the ice before it, and heaving it on the banks with a crash that resounded far and wide. The unhappy pair were seen struggling together against the overpowering element, which, encumbered with ice and trees, filled the channel from bank to bank, and rushed down six feet deep abreast. No effort could be made to save them; and, when the river subsided in the morning, they were found in a distant eddy, the bridegroom's left hand round his bride's waist, and his right hand held out like one in the act of swimming. They lie buried together in the old kirkyard of Dryfesdale. I have often seen Judith sitting weeping on their grave."