So on we lap and awa' we rade,
Till we came to yon bonnie hall;
The rafters were o' the beaten gold,

And silver wire were the kebars all.

There were pipers playing in every neuk,
And ladies dancing jimp and sma';
And aye the owreword o' their tune,

Was-"Our wee, wee man has been lang awa'!*

YOUNG BEARWELL

Is a fragment, and now printed in the hope that the remainder of it may hereafter be recovered. From circumstances, one would almost be inclined to trace it to a Danish source; or it may be an episode of some forgotten metrical romance, but this cannot satisfactorily be ascertained from its catastrophe being unfortunately wanting. -MOTHERWELL.

WHEN two lovers love each other weel,
Great sin it were them to twinn;
And this I speak from young Bearwell,
He loved a lady ying,

The Mayor's daughter of Birktoun-brae,
That lovely liesome thing.

One day when she was looking out,
Washing her milk-white hands,
Then she beheld him young Bearwell,

As he came in the sands.

* The two last lines of the printed copies differ from these; but I never have found their reading sanctioned by a recited copy of any antiquity :

"But in the twinkling of an ee
My wee, wee man was clean awa'!"

-MOTHERWELL.

Says "Wae's me for you, young Bearwell,
Such tales of you are tauld;

They'll cause you sail the salt sea so far,
As beyond Yorkisfauld."

"Oh! shall I bide in good green wood,
Or stay in bower with thee?"
"The leaves are thick in good green wood,
Would hold you from the rain;
And if you stay in bower with me,
You will be taken and slain.

"But I caused build a ship for you,
Upon Saint Innocent's day;
I'll bid Saint Innocent be your guide,
And our Lady that meikle may.
You are a lady's first true love,
God carry you weel away!"

Then he sailed east and he sailed west,
By many a comely strand;
At length a puff of northern wind

Did blow him to the land.

When he did see the king and court,
Were playing at the ba';
Gave him a harp into his hand,
Says "Stay, Bearwell, and play."

He had not been in the king's court
A twelvemonth and a day,

Till there came lords and lairds enew,
To court that lady gay.

They wooed her with broach and ring,
They nothing could keep back,

The very charters of their lands

Into her hands they pat.

She's done her down to Heyvalin,
With the light of the mune;

Says "Will ye do this deed for me,
And will ye do it sune?

"Will ye go seek him, young Bearwell,
On seas wherever he be?
And if I live and bruik* my life,
Rewarded ye shall be."

"Alas, I am too young a skipper, So far to sail the faem;

But if I live and bruik my life,

I'll strive to bring him hame."

So he has sailed east and then sailed west, By many a comely strand;

Till there came a blast of northern wind, And blew him to the land.

And there the king and all his court,
Were playing at the ba',

Gave him a harp into his hand,

Says "Stay, Heyvalin, and play."

He has tane up the harp in hand,
And unto play went he;

And young Bearwell was the first man
In all that companie.

"Bruik:" endure or enjoy.

U

THE GAY GOSS-HAWK.

Sir Walter Scott first published in the Border Minstrelsy the ballad of the Gay Goss-Hawk, partly made up, he informed the reader, from a version in Mrs Brown's collection, and partly from "a MS. of some antiquity," in his own. Mr Motherwell also published a shorter and less complete version, under the title of the Jolly GossHawk, which Mr Peter Buchan sent to him; and, at a later period, Mr Buchan published in his "Ancient Ballads of the North of Scotland," a version different from both, entitled The Scottish Squire, which he took down from recitation, and in which the messenger-bird is a parrot instead of a goss-hawk. Mr Buchan was of opinion that both Sir Walter Scott's version and Motherwell's were inferior to his own "in delineation of character and detail of incident." It has, no doubt, merits of its own, and not only seems to have been less tampered with by scholars than that of Sir Walter Scott, which is avowedly composite, but to have the veritable smack of the street ballad. Mr Buchan is further of opinion that the "parrot" is a better bird for the purposes of the story than the goss-hawk;—an opinion with which few will, we think, be found to coincide.

"O WALY, waly, my gay goss-hawk,
Gin your feathering be sheen!"
"And waly, waly, my master dear,
Gin ye look pale and lean!

"O have ye tint, at tournament,
Your sword, or yet your spear!
Or mourn ye for the Southern lass,
Whom you may not win near?"

"I have not tint at tournament,
My sword, nor yet my spear;
But sair I mourn for my true love,
Wi' mony a bitter tear.

"But weel's me on ye, my gay goss-hawk,
Ye can baith speak and flee;
Ye sall carry a letter to my love,
Bring an answer back to me."

"But how sall I your true love find,
Or how suld I her know?

I bear a tongue ne'er wi' her spake,
An
eye that ne'er her saw."

"O weel sall ye my true love ken,
Sae sune as ye her see;

For of a' the flowers of fair England,

The fairest flower is she.

“The red that's on my true love's cheek
Is like blood-drops on the snaw;

The white that is on her breast bare
Like the down o' the white sea-maw.*

"And even at my love's bower door
You'll find a bowing birk;
ye maun sit and sing thereon
As she gangs to the kirk.

And

"And four-and-twenty fair ladyes
Will to the mass repair,

But weel may ye my ladye ken,
The fairest lady there."

*

* Mr Buchan's version has these lines more pithily:

"O what is red of her is red

As blude drapped on the snaw,
And what is white of her is white
As milk, or the wild sea-maw."