t, though the
waves were fast rising, his attempts to ride out through the surf to the
poor little things were frustrated by their cries, which so frightened
his horse as to render it unmanageable; and so he had to gallop on to
the nearest fishing village for a boat. So much time was unavoidably
lost in consequence, that nearly the whole beach was covered by the sea,
and the surf had begun to lash the feet of the precipices behind; but
until the boat arrived, not a single wave dashed over the black rock;
though immediately after the last of the children had been rescued, an
immense wreath of foam rose twice a man's height over its topmost
pinnacle.

The old nurse, on her return to the cottage, found the green lady
sitting beside the fire. "Mammie," she said, "you have made friends to
yourself to-day, who will be kinder to you than your foster-son. I must
now leave you. My time is out, and you'll be all left to yourselves; but
I'll have no rest, mammie, for many a twelvemonth to come. Ten years
ago, a travelling peddler broke into our garden in the fruit season, and
I sent out our old ploughman, who is now in Ireland, to drive him away.
It was on a Sunday, and everybody else was in church. The men struggled
and fought, and the peddler was killed. But though I at first thought of
bringing the case before the laird, when I saw the dead man's pack, with
its silks and its velvets, and this unhappy piece of green satin
(shaking her dress), my foolish heart beguiled me, and I made the
ploughman bury the peddler's body under our ash tree, in the corner of
our garden, and we divided his goods and money between us. You must bid
the laird raise his bones, and carry them to the churchyard; and the
gold, which you will find in the little bowl under the tapestry in my
room, must be sent to a poor old widow, the peddler's mother, who lives
on the shore of Leith. I must now away to Ireland to the ploughman; and
I'll be e'en less welcome to him, mammie, than at the laird's; but the
hungry blood cries loud against us both,--him and me,--and we must
suffer together. Take care you look not after me till I have passed the
knowe." She glided away, as she spoke, in a gleam of light; and when the
old woman had withdrawn her hand from her eyes, dazzled by the sudden
brightness, she saw only a large black gray-hound crossing the moor. And
the green lady was never afterwards seen in Scotland. The little hoard
of gold pieces, however, stored in a