Then said the Alcayde, "Go! and may good fortune attend you! If you require any safeguard, I and my cavaliers are ready to be your companions.

The Abencerrage kissed the hand of the Alcayde in grateful acknowledgment. "Give me," said he, "my own armour and my steed, and I require no guard. It is not likely that I shall again meet with so valorous a foe."

The shades of night had fallen when the tramp of the dapple grey steed resounded over the draw-bridge, and immediately afterwards the light clatter of hoofs along the road bespoke the fleetness with which the youthful lover hastened to his bride. It was deep night when the Moor arrived at the castle of Coyn. He silently and cautiously walked his panting steed under its dark walls, and, having nearly passed round them, came to the portal denoted by Xarisa. He paused and looked round to see that he was not observed, and then knocked three times with the butt of his lance. In a little while the portal was timidly unclosed by the duenna of Xarisa. "Alas! senor," said she, "what has detained you thus long? Every night have I watched for you, and my lady is sick at heart with doubt and anxiety."

The Abencerrage hung his lance, and shield, and scimitar against the wall, and then followed the duenna with silent steps up a winding staircase to the apartment of Xarisa. Vain would be the attempt to describe the raptures of that meeting. Time flew too swiftly, and the Abencerrage had nearly forgotten until too late his promise to return a prisoner to the Alcayde of Allora. The recollection of it came to him with a pang, and suddenly awoke him from his dream of bliss. Xarisa saw his altered looks, and heard with alarm his stifled sighs; but her countenance brightened when she heard the cause. "Let not thy spirit be cast down," said she, throwing her white arms around him." I have the keys of my father's treasures; send ransom more than enough to satisfy the Christian, and remain with me."

No," said Abendaraez, "I have given my word to return in person, and, like a true knight, must fulfil my promise. After that, fortune must do with me as it pleases."

"Then," said Xarisa, “ I will accompany thee. Never shall you return a prisoner, and I remain at liberty."

The Abencerrage was transported with joy at this new proof of devotion in his beautiful bride. All preparations were speedily made for their departure. Xarisa mounted behind the Moor on his powerful steed; they left the castle walls before day-break, nor did they pause until they arrived at the gate of the castle of Allora, which was flung wide to receive them.

Alighting in the court, the Abencerrage supported the steps of his trembling bride, who remained closely veiled, into the presence of Rodrigo de Narvaez. "Behold, valiant Alcayde," said he, "the way in which an Abencerrage keeps his word. I promised to return to thee a prisoner, but I deliver two captives into your power. Behold Xarisa, and judge whether I grieved without reason over the loss of such a treasure. Receive us as your own, for I confide my life and her honour to your hands."

The Alcayde was lost in admiration of the beauty of the lady, and the noble spirit of the Moor. "I know not," said he, " which of you surpasses the other; but I know that my castle is graced and

honoured by your presence. Enter into it, and consider it your own while you deign to reside with me."

For several days the lovers remained at Allora, happy in each other's love, and in the friendship of the brave Alcayde. The latter wrote a letter full of courtesy to the Moorish king of Granada, relating the whole event, extolling the valour and good faith of the Abencerrage, and craving for him the royal countenance.

The king was moved by the story, and was pleased with an opportunity of showing attention to the wishes of a gallant and chivalrous enemy; for though he had often suffered from the prowess of Don Rodrigo de Narvaez, he admired the heroic character he had gained throughout the land. Calling the Alcayde of Coyn into his presence, he gave him the letter to read. The Alcayde turned pale, and trembled with rage on the perusal. "Restrain thine anger," said the king; "there is nothing that the Alcayde of Allora could ask that I would not grant, if in my power. Go thou to Allora ; pardon thy children; take them to thy home. I receive this Abencerrage into my favour, and it will be my delight to heap benefits upon you all.”

The kindling ire of the Alcayde was suddenly appeased. He hastened to Allora, and folded his children to his bosom, who would have fallen at his feet. The gallant Rodrigo de Narvaez gave liberty to his prisoner without ransom, demanding merely a promise of his friendship. He accompanied the youthful couple and their father to Coyn, where their nuptials were celebrated with great rejoicings. When the festivities were over, Don Rodrigo de Narvaez returned to his fortress of Allora.

After his departure, the Alcayde of Coyn addressed his children: "To your hands," said he, "I confide the disposition of my wealth. One of the first things I charge you, is not to forget the ransom you owe to the Alcayde of Allora. His magnanimity you can never repay, but you can prevent it from wronging him of his just dues. Give him, moreover, your entire friendship; for he merits it fully, though of a different faith."

The Abencerrage thanked him for his generous proposition, which so truly accorded with his own wishes. He took a large sum of gold, and inclosed it in a rich coffer, and, on his own part, sent six beautiful horses, superbly caparisoned, with six shields and lances, mounted and embossed with gold. The beautiful Xarisa at the same time wrote a letter to the Alcayde, filled with expressions of gratitude and friendship; and sent him a box of fragrant cypress wood, containing linen of the finest quality for his person. The valiant Alcayde disposed of the present in a characteristic manner. The horses and armour he shared among the cavaliers who had accompanied him on the night of the skirmish. The box of cypress wood and its contents he retained for the sake of the beautiful Xarisa, and sent her by the hands of the messenger the sum of gold paid as a ransom, entreating her to receive it as a wedding present. This courtesy and magnanimity raised the character of the Alcayde Rodrigo de Narvaez still higher in the estimation of the Moors, who extolled him as a perfect mirror of chivalric virtue; and from that time forward there was a continual exchange of good offices between them.

LEGENDS OF THE LOCHS AND GLENS.-No. II.

COMMUNICATED BY THE AUTHOR OF THE ONLY Daughter.”

THE PHANTOM FUNERAL.

AT the distance of several miles from the scene which in a former legend we described, there is a winding passage through the hills, which leads to a very narrow and precipitous defile, called Glenshee, or Glensheich,-that is to say, the Valley of Spirits. The glen itself is formed by the bases of the mountains, which fall, many of them, in a sharp declivity, for several hundred feet, and is in its gorge filled with the waters of a small dark lake, over which no ray of sunshine has ever been known to shed a character of gladness. Along its farther margin there occur here and there nooks or corners of table-land. Narrow they are, and always of a grotesque formation; for the hills are peculiarly wild and sterile in their character, inasmuch as a shelving mass of débris is the only surface which many of them present, while others are composed entirely of broken and rugged rocks. Yet, although narrow, there was a time when one, and not the broadest, of these table-lands sustained a hearth round which a poor but honest family were wont to assemble. The hut which contained that hearth was indeed of the very humblest order. It lay beneath the shelter of the precipice; and, save that its wicker chimney emitted at all seasons a delicate wreath of smoke, something more than a careless glance would have been required to convince you that such a thing was there. Moreover, round it, or near at hand, were such traces of man's industry as such a spot might alone be expected to exhibit. A patch of green was beside the cabin door, which, from the strong contrast it presented to the brown and stunted herbage near, you were at no loss to determine must be a potato field. A couple of goats, too, were tethered beside the threshold; while a few fowls, less than half-domesticated, scraped a scanty subsistence for themselves from

among the roots of the heather. But in other respects sign there was none, that in this melancholy defile man had set up his rest; for the very roof of the cottage waved with long rank grass, and the blue-bell and wild thyme were abundantly intermixed with it.

Wild as Glenshee is, however, and desolate, and lonely, there are not wanting features here and there which effectually redeem it from the hazard of being condemned as utterly repulsive. A clear mountain stream comes tumbling down the hill, making the ear glad with its everlasting music, and falls into the lake, not till it has threaded its way for a long space amid overhanging rows of mountain-ash and the delicate alder. Over its banks, too, the sward grows rich and sweet, as if the soil were fertilized by the course of the torrent; while here and there the intervention of a rock gathers the waters into a heap, that they may spring off again in a tiny cataract of most pellucid beauty. But this is not all. The rivulet in question flows westward,—a circumstance not to be overlooked, as connected with the burthen of our history; for streams which take this course have a virtue pecu

liarly their own. When the shadows of the trees fall on them, or of the rocks, or even of the clouds above, they become scrolls in which the favoured among men "may read strange matters;" and many a time and oft has this particular rivulet shown to the eyes which studied them events that were to come.

A good many years ago, the hut of which I have spoken was inhabited by old Robin Ure, the shepherd of Glenshee, a thoughtful and somewhat contemplative man, who had arrived at one of the latter stages of human existence, through some enjoyment, and a good deal of suffering. Robin was one of those philosophers of nature's forming, who feel that perfect happiness is not to be expected upon earth, and who therefore school themselves to bear with patience, to look back with resignation, and forward in hope. Robin was also a religious man in his own peculiar way; for, though he seldom went to church, from which, indeed, his occupation cut him off, he carried his Bible with him to the hill-side, and read it gratefully. And much need there was that Robin should find both there, and in the world of imagination which his native poetry created, some solace for the trials which the world of busy men brought him. He had a kind, cheerful, and industrious partner, to be sure, who used her best endeavours to render his home happy; but, woe is me! even the tenderness of a wife will not always suffice if it come alone. Out of the seven children, all of them daughters, whom God had given them, one only survived; and she, albeit the very apple of their eyes, was to her parents a source of unremitting anxiety. She was a fragile and a delicate thing, tender and sensitive in her frame, which was but little adapted to struggle against the rude blasts of her native glen, and the privations to which at times she was subjected. Indeed Mary, or, as the wild and poetic dialect of the glen has it, Mari, was a living instance of that caprice of nature, which plants flowers in a glacier, and scatters rills through a desert waste. Yet hers was not a mere physical debility, -that is to say, the feebleness of the frame had a deeper source than ordinary disease. The order of her destiny had entailed upon Mari a supernatural gift, which sapped the foundations of her life, and stript her of every source of interest and employment belonging to her sex and to her nature. She was born to the inheritance of the second-sight, that strange and most mysterious faculty, which may be traced nowhere except in the Highlands of Scotland; and the consequence was, that from her very cradle she had been an object of awe, I had almost said of terror, even to those who loved her with the tenderest affection. Accordingly the poor child grew almost to woman's estate without having even an ordinary acquaintance with any beyond her own narrow family circle; and, as Robin and his wife could not fail to fall in some degree under the shadow of their unhappy child's proscription, a stranger within the narrow vale of Glenshee-unless, indeed, it might be Murdoch, the shepherd of the opposite mountain, who sometimes came with a bonnet-full of blackberries, or a lamb's-skin for Mari's winter bed-quilt,—would have been almost as much an object of curiosity as Gulliver in Brobdignag, or the first ship to the South Sea Islanders. Yet, as matters stood within, the household of Glenshee was by no means an unhappy one, when the spirit of the lonely maiden rested from the trouble of its waters; for in the long nights of winter, when the wooden boards

were drawn snugly over the window, and the logs of dried fir glowed and crackled on the hearth, the good wife turned her wheel cheerily, and Mari rested her chin upon her father's knee, and turned up to him the lustrous eyes which seemed to form quite the largest half of the pale face they lighted, to listen to the wonders of wild poesie which he drew from a Gaelic volume of Ossian, - the commonest study of such among the Highlanders as study at all. When summer came again, the wizard maiden loved well to carry to the mountain's brow afar off the broth or sowens which formed her father's simple meal, and to linger upon some bare peak which overhung the lake, till the sun went down in his glory, and the stars came forth in their gentleness. For it is one of the peculiarities of this strange malady, if malady it may be called, that the fit of inspiration neither comes when the seer may desire its coming, nor admits of control or repression. There is, and there has been, divination everywhere. The Pythoness of old, the astrologer of the middle ages, the fortune-teller of our own times, all have, or pretend to have, intercourse with unseen powers which they control; but the second-sight is peculiar to the Scottish Highlanders, and a heavy burthen it is upon those individuals on whom destiny may lay it.

Mari was standing on the threshold of her fifteenth year when my tale commences, though her weak frame and stinted proportions did not seem to claim, by several years, a period of life so far advanced towards maturity. If the healthful breeze of the mountains had blown upon her cheek with the invigorating influence which so often attends upon it, she would probably have been a beautiful specimen of her peculiar style of peasant loveliness; for her features were regular and open, and in the period of health, which she occasionally enjoyed, wore an expression of touching sweetness which spoke to the heart. She had a beseeching light in her deep grey eyes, which gave you an impression that there was some fervent and unuttered desire within which this world could not grant; and the melancholy languor of the other features, and the frequency with which her face was turned towards heaven, suggested the idea that her longing was to be at rest.

One clear, blue, biting evening at the end of October, that beautiful Scottish season when the varied covering of tree and mountain is yet stationary under the bright frosty atmosphere of winter, Murdoch, the shepherd, took his way up the margin of Lochshee with his plaid drawn round him, and his bonnet pulled over his eyes, in testimony of the sharpness of the air. The breeze came keenly over the mountain-tops, and swept the atmosphere of every trace of cloud or haze; but without rippling the surface of the water, which lay, as usual, dark, clear, and motionless, as if under the spell of some viewless influence. The leaves of the mountain-ash were falling with that sad sighing motion, which seems to say that they are grieving to resign their bright and brief existence; but the hardier wych-elms yet retained their dark green foliage, and, though rare and straggling, they connected the bright blue sky and the delicate tint of the sunset with the departing season to which they seemed to belong.

Murdoch took less heed of the beauty of the evening than we have done, for he was pushing briskly forward, and appeared to view with some complacency the unusual breadth of the column of