in the most grotesque
habit the clergyman had ever seen, and such as led him at once to suspect
his real character. He walked up to the minister, whom he saluted with
great grace, offering an apology for his intrusion. The pastor returned
his compliments, and, without further explanation, invited the mysterious
stranger to sit down by his side. The invitation was complied with, upon
which the minister proposed the following question:--"Who art thou,
stranger, and from whence?"

To this question the fairy, with downcast eye, replied that he was one of
those sometimes called _Doane Shee_, or men of peace, or good men, though
the reverse of this title was a more fit appellation for them. Originally
angelic in his nature and attributes, and once a sharer of the
indescribable joys of the regions of light, he was seduced by Satan to
join him in his mad conspiracies; and, as a punishment for his
transgression, he was cast down from those regions of bliss, and was now
doomed, along with millions of fellow-sufferers, to wander through seas
and mountains, until the coming of the Great Day. What their fate would
be then they could not divine, but they apprehended the worst. "And,"
continued he, turning to the minister, with great anxiety, "the object of
my present intrusion on you is to learn your opinion, as an eminent
divine, as to our final condition on that dreadful day." Here the
venerable pastor entered upon a long conversation with the fairy,
touching the principles of faith and repentance. Receiving rather
unsatisfactory answers to his questions, the minister desired the
"sheech" to repeat after him the Paternoster, in attempting to do which,
it was not a little remarkable that he could not repeat the word "art,"
but said "_wert_," in heaven. Inferring from every circumstance that
their fate was extremely precarious, the minister resolved not to puff
the fairies up with presumptuous, and, perhaps, groundless expectations.
Accordingly, addressing himself to the unhappy fairy, who was all anxiety
to know the nature of his sentiments, the reverend gentleman told him
that he could not take it upon him to give them any hopes of pardon, as
their crime was of so deep a hue as scarcely to admit of it. On this the
unhappy fairy uttered a shriek of despair, plunged headlong into the
loch, and the minister resumed his course to his home.

THE FISHERMAN AND THE MERMAN.

Of mermen and merwomen many strange stories a