Allan Cunningham

“ Those pure creations of female simplicity, which shine in pastoral speculations, are unknown among the ruddy and buxom damsels of Cumberland. The maritime nymphs of Allanbay are not unconscious of their charms, or careless about their preservation; and to this sweet maiden Nature had given so much female tact as enabled her to know that a beautiful face and large dark hazel eyes have some influence among men. ”

“ There are only two persons living now who remember when the Bonne-Homme-Richard, the first ship ever Richard Faulder commanded, was wrecked on the Pellock sand; one of these persons now addresses you, the other is the fisherman who once owned that cottage—whose name ought never to be named, and whose life seems lengthened as a warning to the earth how fierce God's judgments are. Life changes—all breathing things have their time and their season; but the Solway flows in the same beauty—Criffel rises in the same majesty—the light of morning comes and the full moon arises now as they did then. ”

“ One evening, during her brother's absence with the flock, Phemie sat at her cottage-door, listening to the bleatings of the distant folds and the lessened murmur of the water of Corrie, now scarcely audible beyond its banks. Her eyes, weary with watching along the accustomed line of road for the return of Elphin, were turned on the pool beside her, in which the stars were glimmering fitful and faint. As she looked she imagined the water grew brighter and brighter ”

“ If the bride and bridegroom were blithe, there was another sad enough: even poor Judith, who, retiring from the mirth and the dancing, went to her father's mill-door, and seating herself on a broken mill-stone, and loosing her locks from the comb, let them fall like a shroud around her, while she gazed intent and silent upon Annanwater, which lay still and clear in the setting light of the moon. ”

“ Mark rose and shouted, and waved him back from a place which, to a person unacquainted with the dangers of the bay, real and superstitious, seemed sufficiently perilous: his granddaughter, too, added her voice to his, and waved her white hands; but the more they strove, the faster advanced the peasant, till he stood to his middle in the water, while the tide increased every moment in depth and strength. "Andrew, Andrew," cried the young woman, in a voice quavering with emotion, "turn, turn, I tell you! O the Ships, the Haunted Ships!" ”

“ She pulled from her bosom a silken case, curiously wrought with the needle. A youth sat on the figured prow of a bark, and beneath him a mermaid swam on the green silken sea, waving back her long tresses with one hand and supplicating the young seaman with the other. This singular production seemed the sanctuary of her triumphs over the hearts of men. She began to empty out its contents in her lap; and the jealousy of many a Cumbrian maiden, from Allanbay to Saint Bees Head, would have been excited by learning whose loves these emblems represented. ”

“ The interest I took in the poor girl, a few handfuls of nuts—and, above all, a few pleasant glances from one, who (though old and bent and withered now) was once twenty-one, had a handsome leg, and mirth in his eye—obtained me the good graces of the nymphs of Annanwater. Our conversation turned upon poor Judith Macrone.
"She is a poor innocent," said Mary Halliday, "as wild and as harmless as the birds she is feeding. She was ever a singular girl, and wit and folly seem to keep alternate sway over her mind." ”

“ Her pure sincerity of heart won its way to auld Warlsworm's bosom, frozen as it seemed, and shut up resolutely against the charities of nature. "Ah, Bessie, lass," he murmured, "thy uncle maun leave the bonnie links of Orr, and the gowany braeside of Dee. Many a tug, and many a toiled brow, has it cost him to get them; but the strength of man cannot endure like the hills, nor his spirit flow for ever, like a running stream. ”

“ If, like the virgin queen of the immortal poet, she walked 'in maiden meditation fancy free,' her brother Elphin seemed alike untouched with the charms of the fairest virgins in Corrie. He ploughed his field, he reaped his grain, he leaped, he ran, and wrestled, and danced, and sang, with more skill and life and grace than all other youths of the district; but he had no twilight and stolen interviews: when all other young men had their loves by their side, he was single, though not unsought, and his joy seemed never perfect save when his sister was near him. ”

“ Nothing, indeed, could equal the joy which fathers and mothers manifested towards their children but the affection and tenderness with which they were hailed by the bright eyes of the Cumbrian maidens.
"His name be praised!" said one old man, to whose bosom a son had been unexpectedly delivered from the waves.
"And blessed be the hour ye were saved from the salt sea and that fearful man," said a maiden, whose blushing cheek and brightening eye indicated more than common sympathy.
"And oh! Stephen Porter, my son," resumed the father, "never set foot on shipboard with that mariner more!" ”

“ While thus then sung that gallant outlaw,
⁠Till rung both rock and river:
"Oh! bonny Chatsworth, and fair Chatsworth,
⁠Thy bucks go merrily bounding;
Aneath your green oaks, as the herds flew past,
⁠How oft have my shafts been sounding!
"It is sweet to meet with the one we love,
⁠When the night is nigh the hoarest;
It is sweet to bend the bow as she bids,
⁠On the proud prey of the forest.
"One fair dame loves the cittern's sound,
⁠When the words of love are winging;
But my fair one's music's the outlaw's horn,
⁠And his bow-string sharply singing. ”

“ I'll tell thee, lad, thou'lt never be the shining star in the firmament thy aunt speaks of when she prays. I have seen a lad with as much grace in his eye as thyself endure a sore sermon by himself when the kirk should have scaled." "And I have seen," retorted the swain, "as great a marvel as a pair of white legs, rosy lips, and mischievous eyes, making as wise a man as myself pay dear for an hour's daffin'." "Daffin'," said the maiden, laughing till the woods rang again; "daffin' will be scant when a lass seeks for't with such a world's wonder as thee. ”

“ In the midst of all this tumult, mounted on a little white horse and dressed in black, rode a young man, around whom the dust ascended and descended as if agitated by a whirlwind. This was the minister. He passed on, nor looked to the right or left, but with singular meekness, and a look of sorrow and resignation, endured the tumultuous scorn of the crowd. Long before he reached the limit of the village he seemed more a pillar of dust than a human being. "Is the Kirk a dog, that thou comest against her with staves?" ”

“ At this lamentable conclusion to family worship and intercession for the soul of a departing sinner, the beauteous relation of Warlsworm seemed deeply affected and incensed. She caught the laird in her arms, replaced him on his cushions, soothed down his worldly spirit, and wiped from his face the moisture which disease and excitement had brought to his brow, and that, too, with a cloth of a texture very unlike the fine twined linen and needlework of Egypt which had contributed to this unseemly rapture. ”

“ I saw all at once a body of horsemen coming swiftly down the steep and impassable side of the mountain, where no earthly horse ever rode. They amounted to many hundreds, and trooped onwards in succession, their helmets gleaming and their drawn swords shining amid the starlight. On beholding this vision I uttered a faint scream, and Walter Selby, who was always less or more than other men, shouted till the mountain echoed: 'Saw ever man so gallant a sight? A thousand steeds and riders on the perpendicular side of old Soutra—see, where they gallop along a linn, where I could hardly fly a hawk! ”

“ Thomas Mounsey Cunningham, an elder brother of Allan Cunningham, is entitled to commemoration among the modern song-writers of his country. His ancestors were lords of that district of Ayrshire which still bears their family name; and a small inheritance in that county, which belonged to his more immediate progenitors, was lost to the name and race by the head of the family having espoused the cause and joined the army of the Duke of Montrose. For several generations his forefathers were farmers at Gogar, in the parish of Ratho, Midlothian. ”

“ Hech be't, she's sore changed since that merry time—it cannot be her. Harkee, my douce decent-looking dame, d'ye ken if Prudence Caird be living yet?"
"And what hast thou to say to Prudence Caird?" said the old woman, growing blacker with anger, and clutching, as she spoke, the long sharp fingers of her right hand, portending hostility to the blue eyes of Judith.
"Say to Prudence Caird?" said the maiden; "a bonnie question, indeed! What advice could a poor bewildered creature like me give to a douce person who has had twice the benefit of the counsel of the minister and kirk session?" ”

“ His spirit and deliberation seemed more or less communicated to his little crew; but chiefly to Frank Forster, who, in the ardent buoyancy of youth, moved as he moved, thought as he thought, and acted from his looks alone, as if they had been both in formed with one soul. In those times, the benevolence of individuals had not been turned to multiply the means of preserving seamen's lives; and the mariner, in the hour of peril, owed his life to chance, his own endeavours, or the intrepid exertions of the humane peasantry. ”

“ Sir Marmaduke Maxwell, wilt thou brave us too? A pipe of the richest wine to a drink of the saltest brine in the centre of Solway, that the merry lads of Allanbay exceed thee at least by ten strokes of the oar.' The English mariners replied, as is their wont, with a shout, threw aside their jackets and caps, and prepared gladly for the coming contest; nor were the mariners of Siddick and Colvend slow in preparing: they made themselves ready with that silent and sedate alacrity peculiar to that singular people. ”

“ The maiden wept, and, half insensible with sorrow, bathed her cheeks in tears, while away strode the comforter to the hall, and presently his voice arose in vehement intercession—the sick man groaned. In a little while, the sound of the prayer seemed to ascend from the floor, the laird made a convulsive effort to rise, the voice of Haudthegrup quavered and hesitated, as the voice of a man will do when his hands are busied, and then the sound as of gold falling was heard. ”

“ But a sad cough, which I caught among the damp broom on Quarrelwood Hill hearkening a sectarian sermon, plucked strength and spirit down, and drove me to win the bread by my wit, which more favoured men purchase by the sweat of their brow. But the world is an altered world to me since I commenced my calling; it is a white half-crown, a week the worse for the wear; people are grown too wise to be delighted—they laugh not at my wittiest story, nor shed one tear at my saddest. ”

“ Our young men shall drink, and our young maidens dance; the minister of the parish shall fill our cups, and the pulpit and repentance-stool shall hold flagons and mutchkin stoups. I will go to bed with six pint stoups placed at my feet and six at my head; and when I grow doited and dizzy, the sweetest lass in the country-side shall sit and hold my head.' 'And I,' said John Mackleg, in a low and cautious tone, 'shall be the first laird of my whole kin; whisky-brose shall be my breakfast, and my supper shall be the untaken-down spirit, with strength enough to float a pistol-bullet. ”

“ I laid my bridle on my horse's neck, and wrung my hands, and followed with my looks every motion of Walter Selby. He was in the pride of strength and youth, and spurred against the boldest; and, putting soul and might into every blow, made several saddles empty. I held up my hands, and prayed audibly for success. A dragoon, who had that moment killed a cavalier, rode to my side, and exclaimed: 'Down with thy hands, thou cursed nun—down with thy hands; woot pray yet, woot thou; curse tha, then!' And he made a stroke at me with his sword. ”

“ Set her on a sunny hillside, give her her own will—and, wise or daft, who likes na that?—and she'll clatter ye into a dead sleep, with tales of spirits and apparitions, and the dead who have not peace in the grave and walk the earth for a season. I heard douce John Stroudwater, the Cameronian elder, say that assuredly an evil spirit has filled her head with fool songs and queer lang-sin-syne ballads, by and attour a foreknowledge of coming evil. It's well known that she foretold the drowning of her sister and her bridegroom, in that black pool before us, where poor Jude now sits so sorrowful. ”

“ The laird carried Phemie Irving in his arms, till he observed two shepherds ascending from one of the loops of Corriewater, bearing the lifeless body of her brother. They had found him whirling round and round in one of the numerous eddies, and his hands, clutched and filled with wool, showed that he had lost his life in attempting to save the flock of his sister. A plaid was laid over the body, which, along with the unhappy maiden in a half-lifeless state, was carried into a cottage, and laid in that apartment distinguished among the peasantry by the name of the chamber. ”

“ We pushed our shallop to the shore, and soon stood at their side.
"This is old Mark Macmoran the mariner, with his granddaughter Barbara," said Richard Faulder, in a whisper that had something of fear in it; "he knows every creek and cavern and quicksand in Solway—has seen the Spectre Hound that haunts the Isle of Man; has heard him bark, and at every bark has seen a ship sink; and he has seen, too, the Haunted Ships in full sail; and, if all tales be true, he has sailed in them himself;—he's an awful person." ”