the man has come,'
an' then flashing through the water like a drake, it disappeared in the
lower pool. When the folk stood wondering what the creature might mean,
they saw a man on horseback come spurring down the hill in hot haste,
making straight for the fause ford. They could then understand her words
at ance; an' four o' the stoutest o' them sprang oot frae amang the corn
to warn him o' his danger, an' keep him back. An' sae they tauld him
what they had seen an' heard, an' urged him either to turn back an' tak'
anither road, or stay for an hour or sae where he was. But he just wadna
hear them, for he was baith unbelieving an' in haste, an' wauld hae taen
the ford for a' they could say, hadna the Highlanders, determined on
saving him whether he would or no, gathered round him an' pulled him frae
his horse, an' then, to mak' sure o' him, locked him up in the auld kirk.
Weel, when the hour had gone by--the fatal hour o' the kelpie--they flung
open the door, an' cried to him that he might noo gang on his journey.
Ah! but there was nae answer, though; an' sae they cried a second time,
an' there was nae answer still; an' then they went in, an' found him
lying stiff an' cauld on the floor, wi' his face buried in the water o'
the very stone trough that we may still see amang the ruins. His hour
had come, an' he had fallen in a fit, as 'twould seem, head-foremost
amang the water o' the trough, where he had been smothered,--an' sae ye
see, the prophecy o' the kelpie availed naething."

WHIPPETY STOURIE.

There was once a gentleman that lived in a very grand house, and he
married a young lady that had been delicately brought up. In her
husband's house she found everything that was fine--fine tables and
chairs, fine looking-glasses, and fine curtains; but then her husband
expected her to be able to spin twelve hanks o' thread every day, besides
attending to her house; and, to tell the even-down truth, the lady could
not spin a bit. This made her husband glunchy with her, and, before a
month had passed, she found hersel' very unhappy.

One day the husband gaed away upon a journey, after telling her that he
expected her, before his return, to have not only learned to spin, but to
have spun a hundred hanks o' thread. Quite downcast, she took a walk
along the hillside, till she cam' to a big flat stane, and there she sat
down and grat. By and by she heard a strain o' fine sma' music, coming
as it were frae aneat