its companions of the same nature, can be discerned by
mortal men in forms which best explain to human intelligence the
passions which they excite in human breasts. This is how I explain the
fact, for instance, that the austerity of a lonely rock at sea will
take the form and semblance, and much more than that, assume the
prerogatives of a brooding man, or that the swift freedom of a river
will pass by, as in a flash, in the coursing limbs of a youth, or that
at dusk, out of a reed-encircled mountain-tarn, silvery under the hush
of the grey hour, there will rise, and gleam, and sink again, the pale
face, the shoulders and breast of the Spirit of the Pool; that,
finally, the grace of a tree, and its panic of fury when lashed by
storm, very capable in either case of inspiring love or horror, will
be revealed rarely in the form of a nymph. There may be a more
rational explanation of these curious things, but I don't know of one:

_Fortunatus et ille, Deos qui novit agrestes!_

Happy may one be in the fairies of our own country. Happy, even yet,
are they who can find the Oreads of the hill, Dryads of the wood,
nymphs of river, marsh, plough-land, pasture, and heath. Now, leaving
to Greece the things that are Greek, here for an apologue follows a
plain recital of facts within the knowledge of every man of the
Cheviots.

I

There is in that country, not far from Otterburn--between Otterburn
and the Scottish border--a remote hamlet consisting of a few white
cottages, farm buildings and a shingle-spired church. It is called
Dryhope, and lies in a close valley, which is watered by a beck or
burn, known as the Dryhope Burn. It is deeply buried in the hills.
Spurs of the Cheviots as these are, they rise to a considerable
elevation, but are pasturable nearly to the top. There, however, where
the heather begins, peat-hags and morasses make dangerous provision,
from which the flocks are carefully guarded. It is the practice of the
country for the shepherds to be within touch of them all night, lest
some, feeding upward (as sheep always do) should reach the summits and
be lost or mired inextricably. These upland stretches, consequently,
are among the most desolate spots to be found in our islands. I have
walked over them myself within recent years and met not a human soul,
nor beast of man's taming. Ravens, curlews, peewits, a lagging fox or
limping hare; such, with the unsensed Spirits of the Earth, will be
your company.