witchcraft and
fairydom were more common than now, and when there was less
dissemination of Scripture truth. It is a saying in some parts of the
North that the profuse spread of the Shorter Catechism has been the
means of driving witches and fairies out of their old haunts. For my own
part, I know of nothing more likely to make them decamp.[28]

I was lucky enough to meet a gentleman who declared, not with an oath,
but with a _pretty strong_ asseveration, that he had once seen a fairy.
It was in a railway train that I knit conversation with him. He was a
kilted country squire, tall, thin, and soulful: on his head was a
glengarry with a pair of flying ribbons. He spoke in rapt sentences, as
if he were looking on a vision. This is the substance of his remarks:--

One autumn morning, when the world lay fair
Under the radiant blue, I musing lay
By a green knoll, beside a rippling bay,
When, suddenly, gliding through the silent air,
A green-clad apparition, wrinkled, spare,
Angry, and grieving, passed along the way
Before me for a moment's space. The fay
Was old and did not see me lying there.
I grieved to see her sob in fretful mood,
And often since I marvel in my mind
What grievous heart-pang drove her from the wood
To ease her heart away from her own kind.
Strange, that these tiny, soulless beings should,
Like us, be grieved and be with passion blind!

These are the words of a man who speaks with conviction. I ought to
mention that, ecclesiastically (and I hope in other ways, too,) he was a
Moderate. Two things annoyed him greatly: (1) that the fairy did not
deign to look at him; (2) that nobody but his little grand-daughter of
eight would believe he had seen a fairy at all. "Why," he said, "I could
draw that fairy now, if I had pencil and paper. I see her as plain as I
see you. _Her little bosom was heaving, and she wore a necklace of
twisted corn-stalks. I am sorry I did not offer her some refreshment._"

[28] A very similar account is given, of the dearth of the little
folk in England, by the poet Chaucer; only, that eminent writer
declares that the phenomenon is due to the zeal and prayers of
the monks and begging-friars, who paced about the country
muttering blessings and exorcistic paragraphs.

TALES FROM LOCH BROOM.

The enquirer will find a specially abundant crop of old stories if he
stays long on Loch Broom side. The bard of