Page:Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry - 1887.djvu/247

Rh rent away—the diamonds and gold that enclosed her neck, and ornamented the bosom of her rich satin dress, had been torn off—the rings removed from her fingers; and on her neck, lately so lily-white and pure, there appeared the marks of hands—not laid there in love and gentleness, but with a fierce and deadly grasp.

"The lady was buried with the body of her husband, side by side, in Caerlaverock burial-ground. My father never openly accused Gilbert the fisherman of having murdered the lady for her riches as she reached the shore, preserved, as was supposed, from sinking by her long, wide, and stiff satin robes; but from that hour till the hour of his death my father never broke bread with him—never shook him or his by the hand, nor spoke with them in wrath or in love. The fisherman from that time, too, waxed rich and prosperous, and from being the needy proprietor of a halve-net, and the tenant at will of a rude cottage, he became, by purchase, lord of a handsome inheritance, proceeded to build a bonny mansion, and called it Gyrape-ha'; and became a leading man in a flock of a purer kind of Presbyterians—and a precept and example to the community.

"Though the portioner of Gyrape-ha' prospered wondrously, his claims to parochial distinction, and the continuance of his fortune, were treated with scorn by many, and with doubt by all: though nothing open or direct was said—looks, more cutting at times than the keenest speech, and actions still more expressive, showed that the hearts of honest men were alienated—the cause was left to his own interpretation. The peasant scrupled to become his servant—sailors hesitated to receive his grain on board, lest perils should find them on the deep—the beggar ceased to solicit alms—the drover and horse-couper, an unscrupling generation, found out a more distant mode of concluding bargains than by shaking his hand—his daughters, handsome and blue-eyed, were neither wooed nor married—no maiden would hold tryste with his sons—though maidens were then as little loth as they are now; and the aged peasant, as he passed his new mansion, would shake his head and say, 'The voice of spilt blood will be lifted up against thee—and a spirit shall come up from the waters will make the corner-stone of thy habitation tremble and quake.'

"It happened, during the summer which succeeded this unfortunate shipwreck, that I accompanied my father to the