But with a grievous groan
Evanished in a cloud of mist,
And left her all alone, &c.
No such conclusion, perhaps, was needed, for it may be suspected that the verse here printed sixth is the true finale of the story, accidentally transferred from its proper place.
There is a slight affinity between the above and a ballad entitled Tam Lane, to which Scott drew special attention in his Border Minstrelsy, by making it a peg for eighty pages of prose dissertation On the Fairies of Popular Superstition. It describes a lover as lost to his mistress, by being reft away into fairy-land, and as recovered by an effort of courage and presence of mind on her part. It opens thus:
O I forbid ye maidens a',
That wear gowd in your hair,
To come or gae by Carterhaugh,
For the young Tam Lane is there.
It may be remarked how often before we have seen maidens described as wearing gold in their hair. One maiden defies the prohibition: