Folk-Lore and Legends | Page 5

one Whom I
am adoring.
Her round neck is whiter Than winter when snowing; Her meek voice
is milder Than Ae in its flowing; The glad ground yields music Where
she goes by the river; One kind glance would charm me For ever and
ever.
The proud and the wealthy To Phemie are bowing; No looks of love
win they With sighing or suing; Far away maun I stand With my rude
wooing, She's a flow'ret too lovely Too bloom for my pu'ing.
Oh were I yon violet On which she is walking; Oh were I yon small
bird To which she is talking; Or yon rose in her hand, With its ripe
ruddy blossom; Or some pure gentle thought To be blest with her
bosom.
This minstrel interruption, while it established Phemie Irving's claim to
grace and to beauty, gave me additional confidence to pursue the story.
"But minstrel skill and true love-tale seemed to want their usual

influence when they sought to win her attention; she was only observed
to pay most respect to those youths who were most beloved by her
brother; and the same hour that brought these twins to the world
seemed to have breathed through them a sweetness and an affection of
heart and mind which nothing could divide. If, like the virgin queen of
the immortal poet, she walked 'in maiden meditation fancy free,' her
brother Elphin seemed alike untouched with the charms of the fairest
virgins in Corrie. He ploughed his field, he reaped his grain, he leaped,
he ran, and wrestled, and danced, and sang, with more skill and life and
grace than all other youths of the district; but he had no twilight and
stolen interviews; when all other young men had their loves by their
side, he was single, though not unsought, and his joy seemed never
perfect save when his sister was near him. If he loved to share his time
with her, she loved to share her time with him alone, or with the beasts
of the field, or the birds of the air. She watched her little flock late, and
she tended it early; not for the sordid love of the fleece, unless it was to
make mantles for her brother, but with the look of one who had joy in
its company. The very wild creatures, the deer and the hares, seldom
sought to shun her approach, and the bird forsook not its nest, nor
stinted its song, when she drew nigh; such is the confidence which
maiden innocence and beauty inspire.
"It happened one summer, about three years after they became orphans,
that rain had been for a while withheld from the earth, the hillsides
began to parch, the grass in the vales to wither, and the stream of Corrie
was diminished between its banks to the size of an ordinary rill. The
shepherds drove their flocks to moorlands, and marsh and tarn had their
reeds invaded by the scythe to supply the cattle with food. The sheep of
his sister were Elphin's constant care; he drove them to the moistest
pastures during the day, and he often watched them at midnight, when
flocks, tempted by the sweet dewy grass, are known to browse eagerly,
that he might guard them from the fox, and lead them to the choicest
herbage. In these nocturnal watchings he sometimes drove his little
flock over the water of Corrie, for the fords were hardly ankle- deep; or
permitted his sheep to cool themselves in the stream, and taste the grass
which grew along the brink. All this time not a drop of rain fell, nor did
a cloud appear in the sky.

"One evening, during her brother's absence with the flock, Phemie sat
at her cottage-door, listening to the bleatings of the distant folds and the
lessened murmur of the water of Corrie, now scarcely audible beyond
its banks. Her eyes, weary with watching along the accustomed line of
road for the return of Elphin, were turned on the pool beside her, in
which the stars were glimmering fitful and faint. As she looked she
imagined the water grew brighter and brighter; a wild illumination
presently shone upon the pool, and leaped from bank to bank, and
suddenly changing into a human form, ascended the margin, and,
passing her, glided swiftly into the cottage. The visionary form was so
like her brother in shape and air, that, starting up, she flew into the
house, with the hope of finding him in his customary seat. She found
him not, and, impressed with the terror which a wraith or apparition
seldom fails to inspire, she uttered a shriek so loud and so piercing as to
be heard at Johnstone Bank, on the other side of the vale of Corrie."
An old woman