ous treasure, but made his proposals, and
offered to take her for better or for worse, as his future wife! The
merlady, though not, as we know, much a woman of the world, very
prudently accepted the offer! I never heard what the settlements were,
but they lived very happily for some years, till one day, when the
green-haired bride unexpectedly discovered her long-lost seal-skin, and
instantly putting it on, she took a hasty farewell of everybody, and ran
towards the shore. Her husband flew out in pursuit of her, but in vain!
She sprang from point to point, and from rock to rock, till at length,
hastening into the ocean, she disappeared for ever, leaving the worthy
man, her husband, perfectly planet-struck and inconsolable on the
shore!"[91]

Nor are there lacking in the rocky cliffs of our own northern islands
fit lodgings for these sea kings and queens. The gifted pen of Sir
Walter Scott has sketched one of these from his own observation:
"Imagination can hardly conceive anything more beautiful than the
extraordinary grotto discovered not many years since upon the estate of
Alexander MacAllister, Esq. of Strathaird [in Skye]. The first entrance
to this celebrated cave is rude and unpromising: but the light of the
torches with which we were provided, was soon reflected from the roof,
floor, and walls, which seemed as if they were sheeted with marble,
partly smooth, partly rough with frostwork and rustic ornaments, and
partly seeming to be wrought into statuary. The floor forms a steep and
difficult ascent, and might be fancifully compared to a sheet of water,
which, while it rushed whitening and foaming down a declivity, had been
suddenly arrested and consolidated by the spell of an enchanter. Upon
attaining the summit of this ascent, the cave opens into a splendid
gallery, adorned with the most dazzling crystallizations, and finally
descends with rapidity to the brink of a pool, of the most limpid water,
about four or five yards broad. There opens beyond this pool a portal
arch, formed by two columns of white spar, with beautiful chasing upon
the sides, which promises a continuation of the cave. One of our sailors
swam across, for there is no other mode of passing, and informed us (as
indeed we partly saw by the light he carried) that the enchantment of
MacAllister's cave terminates with this portal, a little beyond which
there was only a rude cavern, speedily choked with stones and earth. But
the pool on the brink of