He thought not to search or stanch the wound,
Until the secret he had found.
The iron band, the iron clasp,
Resisted long the elfin grasp:
For when the first he had undone,
It closed as he the next begun.
Those iron clasps, that iron band,
Would not yield to unchristen'd hand,
Till he smear'd the cover o'er
With the Borderer's curdled gore;
A moment then the volume spread,
And one short spell therein he read,
It had much of glamour might,
Could make a ladye seem a knight;
The cobwebs on a dungeon wall
Seem tapestry in lordly hall;
A nut-shell seem a gilded baige,
A sheeling 2 seem a palace large,
And youth scem age, and age seem youth-
All was delusion, nought was truth.3
He had not read another spell,
When on his cheek a buffet fell,
So fierce, it stretch'd him on the plain,
Beside the wounded Deloraine.
From the ground he rose dismay'd,
And shook his huge and matted head;
One word he mutter'd, and no more,
"Man of age, thou smitest sore !
No more the Elfin Page durst try
Into the wondrous Book to pry;
The clasps, though smear'd with Christian gore,
Shut faster than they were before.
He hid it underneath his cloak.
Now, if you ask who gave the stroke,
I cannot tell, so mot I thrive;
It was not given by man alive.
Unwillingly himself he address'd,
To do his master's high behest:
He lifted up the living corse,
And laid it on the weary horse;
He led him into Branksome Hall,
Before the beards of the warders all;
And each did after swear and say,
There only pass'd a wain of hay.
He took him to Lord David's tower,
Even to the Ladye's secret bower;
And, but that stronger spells were spread,
And the door might not be opened,
He had laid him on her very bed.
Whate'er he did of gramarye,5
Was always done maliciously;
He flung the warrior on the ground,
And the blood well'd freshly from the wound.
mass-book in their bosoms, they were called, by the in-
habitants, Book-a-bosomes. There is a man yet alive, who
knew old men who had been baptised by these Book-a-
bosomes, and who says one of them, called Hair, used this
parish for a very long time."-Account of Parish of Ewes,
apud Macfarlane's MSS.
Magical delusion.
2 A shepherd's hut.
3 See Note U.
4 See Note V.
As he repass'd the outer court,
He spied the fair young child at sport:
He thought to train him to the wood;
For, at a word, be it understood,
He was always for ill, and never for good.
Seem'd to the boy, some comrade gay
Led him forth to the woods to play;
On the drawbridge the warders stout
Saw a terrier and lurcher passing out.
He led the boy o'er bank and fell,
Until they came to a woodland brook;
The running stream dissolved the spell,
And his own elvish shape he took.
Could he have had his pleasure vilde,
He had crippled the joints of the noble child;
Or, with his fingers long and lean,
Had strangled him in fiendish spleen:
But his awful mother he had in dread,
And also his power was limited;
So he but scowl'd on the startled child,
And darted through the forest wild;
The woodland brook he bounding cross'd,
"Lost! lost!
And laugh'd, and shouted,
lost!"-
Full sore amazed at the wondrous change,
And frighten'd as a child might be,
At the wild yell and visage strange,
And the dark words of gramarye,
The child, amidst the forest bower,
Stood rooted like a lily flower;
And when at length, with trembling pace,
He sought to find where Branksome lay,
He fear'd to see that grisly face
Glare from some thicket on his way.
Thus, starting oft, he journey'd on,
And deeper in the wood is gone,-
For aye the more he sought his way,
The farther still he went astray,-
Until he heard the mountains round
Ring to the baying of a hound.
And hark! and hark! the deep-mouth'd bark
Comes nigher still, and nigher:
Bursts on the path a dark blood-hound,
His tawny muzzle track'd the ground,
And his red eye shot fire.
Soon as the wilder'd child saw he,
He flew at him right furiouslie.
I ween you would have seen with joy
The bearing of the gallant boy,
When, worthy of his noble sire,
His wet check glow'd 'twixt fear and ire!
1 It is a firm article of popular faith, that no enchantNay, if you can ment can subsist in a living stream. interpose a brook betwixt you and witches, spectres, or even fiends, you are in perfect safety. Burns's inimitable Tam o Shanter turns entirely upon such a circumstance. The belief seems to be of antiquity. Brompton informs us, that certain Irish wizards could, by spells, convert the market; but which always reassumed their proper earthen clods, or stones, into fat pigs, which they sold in form, when driven by the deceived purchaser across a running stream. But Brompton is severe on the Irish for a "Gens ista spurcissima non solvunt very good reason. decimas."-Chronicon Johannis Brompton apud decem Scriptores, p. 1976.
He faced the blood-hound manfully,
And held his little bat on high;
So fierce he struck, the dog, afraid,
At cautious distance hoarsely bay'd,
But still in act to spring;
When dash'd an archer through the glade,
And when he saw the hound was stay'd,
He drew his tough bow-string;
But a rough voice cried, "Shoot not, hoy!
Ho! shoot not, Edward-'Tis a boy!"
The speaker issued from the wood,
And check'd his fellow s surly mood,
And quell'd the ban-dog's ire:
He was an English yeoman good,
And born in Lancashire.
Well could he hit a fallow-deer
Five hundred feet him fro;
With hand more true, and eye more clear,
No archer bended bow.
His coal-black hair, shorn round and close,
Set off his sun-burn'd face:
Old England's sign, St. George's cross,
His barret-cap did grace;
His bugle-horn hung by his side,
All in a wolf-skin baldrie tied ;
And his short falchion, sharp and clear,
Had pierced the throat of many a deer.
His kirtle, made of forest green,
Reach'd scantly to his knee;
And, at his belt, of arrows keen
A furbish'd sheaf bore he;
His buckler scarce in breadth a span,
No larger fence had he;
He never counted him a man,
Would strike below the knee:1
1 Imitated from Drayton's account of Robin Hood and his followers:
"A hundred valiant men had this brave Robin Hood,
Still ready at his call, that bowmen were right good:
All clad in Lincoln green, with caps of red and blue,
His fellow's winded horn not one of them but knew.
When setting to their lips their bugles shrill,
The warbling echoes waked from every dale and hill;
Their bauldrics set with studs athwart their shoulders
To which under their arms their sheafs were buckled fast,
A short sword at their belt, a buckler scarce a span,
Who struck below the knee not counted then a man.
All made of Spanish yew, their bows were wondrous
They not an arrow drew but was a clothyard long.
Of archery they had the very perfect craft,
With broad arrow, or but, or prick, or roving shaft."
Poly Olbion, Song 26.
His slacken'd bow was in his hand,
And the leash, that was his blood-hound's
band.
He would not do the fair child harm,
But held him with his powerful arm,
That he might neither fight nor flee;
For when the Red-Cross spied he,
The boy strove long and violently.
"Now, by St. George," the archer cries,
"Edward, methinks we have a prize!
This boy s fair face, and courage free,
Show he is come of high degree."—
"Yes! I am come of high degree,
For I am the heir of bold Buccleuch;
And, if thou dost not set me free,
False Southron, thou shalt dearly rue!
For Walter of Harden shall come with speed,
And William of Deloraine, good at need,
And every Scott, from Esk to Tweed;
And, if thou dost not let me go,
Despite thy arrows, and thy bow,
I'll have thee hang'd to feed the crow!"—
"Gramercy, for thy good-will, fair boy!
My mind was never set so high;
But if thou art chief of such a clan,
And art the son of such a man,
And ever comest to thy command,
Our wardens had need to keep good order;
My bow of yew to a hazel wand,
Thou'lt make them work upon the Border.
Meantime, be pleased to come with me,
For good Lord Dacre shalt thou see;
I think our work is well begun,
When we have taken thy father's son."
Although the child was led away, In Branksome still he secur'd to stay, For so the Dwarf his part did play; And, in the shape of that young boy, The comrades of the young Buccleuch He wrought the castle much annoy. He pinch'd, and beat, and overthrew; Nay, some of them he wellnigh slew. He tore Dame Maudlin's silken tire, And, as Sym Hall stood by the fire, He lighted the match of his bandelier,' And wofully scorch'd the hackbuteer. 2 To wound an antagonist in the thigh, or leg, was It may be hardly thought or said, reckoned contrary to the law of arms. In a tilt betwixt The mischief that the urchin made, Gawain Michael, an English squire, and Joachim Cathore, n Frenchman, "they met at the speare poyntes rudely: Till many of the castle guess'd, the French squyer justed right pleasantly; the English-That the young Baron was possess'd! man run too lowe, for he strak the Frenchman depe into the thigh. Wherewith the Erle of Buckingham was right sore displeased, and so were all the other lords, and sayde how it was shamefully done."-FROISSART, vol. i. chap. 366. Upon a similar occasion, "the two knyghts came a foto eche against other rudely, with their speares low Couched, to stryke eche other within the foure quarters. Johan of Castell Morant strake the English squyer on the brest in such wyse, that Syr Wyllyam Fermetone stombled and bowed, for his tote a lyttel fayled him. He helde his speare lowe with both his handes, and coude nat amende it, and strake Syr Johan of the Castell-Morant in the thighe, so that the speare went clene throughe, that the heed was sene a handfull on the other syde. And Syr
Johan with the stroke reled, but he fell nat. Than the
Englyshe knyghtes and squyers were ryghte sore dis-
pleased, and sayde how it was a foule stroke. Syr Wyl-
Iyam Fermetone excused himselfe, and sayde how he was
sorie of that adventure, and howe that yf he had knowen
that it shulde have bene so, he wolde never have begon it;
sayenge how he could nat amende it, by cause of glauns-
ing of his fote by coustraynt of the great stroke that Syr
Johan of the Castell-Morant had given him."-FROIS-
SART, vol. i. chap. 373
1 Bandelier, belt for carrying ammunition.
2 Hackbuteer, musketeer.
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