ngle with a soft low note as the hand moves.

[Illustration: Fig. 178.]

[Illustration: Fig. 179.]

We have already alluded to the old Eastern tale of "The Fish and the
Ring," invented some thousands of years since. It has survived to our
own day, and is still related and believed by the commonalty to the east
of London. In the church at Stepney is a tomb to the memory of Lady
Rebecca Berry, who died 1696, in whose coat-of-arms a fish and an
annulet appear. She has hence been supposed the heroine of a once
popular ballad, the scene of which is laid in Yorkshire; it is entitled,
"The Cruel Knight, or Fortunate Farmer's Daughter," and narrates how one
of knightly rank in passing a village heard the cry of a woman in
travail, and was told by a witch that he was pre-doomed to marry that
girl on her arrival at womanhood. The knight in deep disgust draws a
ring from his finger, and casting it into a rapid river, vows he will
never do so unless she can produce that ring. After many years a fish is
brought to the farmer's daughter to dress for dinner, and she finds the
ring in its stomach, enabling her to win a titled husband, who no longer
fights against his fate.

The civic arms of Glasgow exhibit a fish holding a ring in its mouth.
This alludes to an incident in the life of St. Kentigern, patron of the
See, as related in the "Acta Sanctorum." The queen, who was his
penitent, had formed an attachment to a soldier, and had given him a
ring she had received from her husband. The king knew his ring, but
abided his revenge, until one day discovering the soldier asleep by the
banks of the Clyde, he took the ring from his finger and threw it in the
stream. He then demanded of his queen a sight of his old love gift, a
request she was utterly unable to comply with. In despair, she confessed
all to St. Kentigern, vowing a purer life in future. The saint went to
the river, caught a salmon, and took from its stomach the missing ring,
which restored peace to all parties.[147-*]

The occurrence of the fish and ring in the arms of Glasgow and in the
Stepney monument, is "confirmation strong as proofs of holy writ" of the
truth of these stories, in the minds of the vulgar, who would regard
scepticism in the same light as religious infidelity.

[Illustration: Fig. 180.]

[Illustration: Fig. 181.]

Memorial rings were sometimes made to exhibit a small portrait, and on
some occasions to conceal one beneath the stone. Such is the ring,