been half an hour
in the house. In vain did the latter assure him that, instead of half an
hour, he had actually remained twelve months. Nor would he have believed
his overjoyed friends when his brother at length got him home, did not
the calves, now grown into stots, and the new-born babes, now travelling
the house, at length convince him that in his single reel he had danced
for a twelvemonth and a day.

THE HAUNTED SHIPS.

"Though my mind's not
Hoodwinked with rustic marvels, I do think
There are more things in the grove, the air, the flood,
Yea, and the charnelled earth, than what wise man,
Who walks so proud as if his form alone
Filled the wide temple of the universe,
Will let a frail mind say. I'd write i' the creed
O' the sagest head alive, that fearful forms,
Holy or reprobate, do page men's heels;
That shapes, too horrid for our gaze, stand o'er
The murderer's dust, and for revenge glare up,
Even till the stars weep fire for very pity."

Along the sea of Solway, romantic on the Scottish side, with its
woodland, its bays, its cliffs, and headlands; and interesting on the
English side, with its many beautiful towns with their shadows on the
water, rich pastures, safe harbours, and numerous ships, there still
linger many traditional stories of a maritime nature, most of them
connected with superstitions singularly wild and unusual. To the curious
these tales afford a rich fund of entertainment, from the many
diversities of the same story; some dry and barren, and stripped of all
the embellishments of poetry; others dressed out in all the riches of a
superstitious belief and haunted imagination. In this they resemble the
inland traditions of the peasants; but many of the oral treasures of the
Galwegian or the Cumbrian coast have the stamp of the Dane and the
Norseman upon them, and claim but a remote or faint affinity with the
legitimate legends of Caledonia. Something like a rude prosaic outline
of several of the most noted of the northern ballads, the adventures and
depredations of the old ocean kings, still lends life to the evening
tale; and, among others, the story of the Haunted Ships is still popular
among the maritime peasantry.

One fine harvest evening I went on board the shallop of Richard Faulder,
of Allanbay, and, committing ourselves to the waters, we allowed a gentle
wind from the east to waft us at its pleasure towards the Scottish coas