apparition was manifest to several persons, though not, I fancy, to any but the girls concerned in the peascodding. [Footnote 13: It is said to have been the base of a Roman terminal statue, but I have not seen it.] The Willow-lad's is another tale of the same kind. It was described in 1787 by the Reverend Samuel Jordan in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, if I am not mistaken. The Willow-lad was an apparition which was believed to appear in a withy-bed on the banks of the Ouse near Huntingdon. He could only be seen at dusk, and only by women. He had a sinister reputation, and to say of a girl that she had been to the withy-bed was a broad hint that she was no better than she should be. Yet, according to Mr. Jordan, the girls did go there in numbers, and to such effect that by an order of the Town Council the place was stubbed up. You had to go alone to the withy-bed between sunset and sunrise of a moonless night, to lay your hand upon a certain stump and say, and in a loud voice:-- Willow-boy, Willow-boy, come to me soon, After the sun and before the moon. Hide the stars and cover my head; Let no man see me when I be wed. One would like to know whether the Willow-lad's powers perished with the withy-bed. They should not, but should have been turned to malicious uses. There are many cases in Mr. Lawson's book of the malefical effect upon the Dryads of cutting down the trees whose spirit they are. And most people know Landor's idyll, or if they don't, they should. * * * * * There are queer doings under the sun as well as under the moon. A man may travel far without leaving his arm-chair by the fire, in countries where no tourist-tickets obtain, and see stranger things than are recorded by Herr Baedeker. The waies through which my weary steps I guide In this delightful land of Faery Are so exceeding spacious and wyde, And sprinckled with such sweet variety Of all that pleasant is to eare or eye, That I, nigh ravisht with rare thoughts' delight, My tedious travele doe forget thereby; And when I gin to feele decay of might, It strength to me supplies, and chears my dulléd spright. THE END End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lore of Proserpine, by Maurice Hewlett