And heard the slogan's* deadly yell

Then the Chief of Branksome fell. VIII.

Can piety the discord heal,

Or stanch the death-feud's enmity? Can Christian lore, can patriot zeal, Can love of blessed charity? No! vainly to each holy shrine,

In mutual pilgrimage they drew; Implored, in vain, the grace divine For chiefs, their own red falchions slew;

While Cessford owns the rule of Carr, While Ettrick boasts the line of Scott,

But not alone the bitter tear
Had filial grief supplied;
For hopeless love, and anxious fear
Had lent their mingled tide:
Nor in her mother's alter'd eye
Dared she to look for sympathy.
Her lover, 'gainst her father's clan,
With Carr in arms had stood,
When Mathouse-burn to Melrose ran,
All purple with their blood;
And well she knew, her mother dread
Before Lord Cranstoun she would

wed,

Would see her on her dying bed.

XI.

Of noble race the Ladye came,

Shall never, never be forgot!

IX.

In sorrow o'er Lord Walter's bier The warlike foresters had bent; And many a flower, and many a tear, Old Teviot's maids and matrons lent:

But o'er her warrior's bloody bier The Ladye dropp'd nor flower nor tear!

Vengeance, deep-brooding o'er the slain,

Had lock'd the source of softer woe; And burning pride, and high disdain, Forbade the rising tear to flow. Until, amid his sorrowing clan, Her son lisp'd from the nurse's knee

"And if I live to be a man,

My father's death revenged shall] be!"

Then fast the mother's tears did seek To dew the infant's kindling cheek.

X.

All loose her negligent attire,

All loose her golden hair,

Hung Margaret o'er her slaughter'd sire,

And wept in wild despair,

The war-cry, or gathering word, of a Border clan.

Of Pethune's line of Picardie: He learn the art that none may name, In Padua, far beyond the sea. Men said, he changed his mortal frame, By feat of magic mystery; For when, in studious mode, he paced St. Andrew's cloister'd hall, His form no darkening shadow traced Upon the sunny wall!

XII.

And of his skill, as bards avow,

He taught that Ladye fair,
Till to her bidding she could bow
The viewless forms of air.
And now she sits in secret bower,
In old Lord David's western tower,
And listens to a heavy sound,
That moans the mossy turrets round,
Is it the roar of Teviot's tide,
That chafes against the scaur'st red
side?

Is it the wind that swings the oaks?
Is it the echo from the rocks?
What may it be, the heavy sound,
That moans old Branksome's turrets
round?

XIII.

At the sullen, moaning sound, The ban-dogs bay and howl; And, from the turrets round, Loud whoops the startled owl.

A steep embankment.

Should tame the Unicorn's pride,* Exalt the Crescent and the Star.†

XX.

The Ladye forgot her purpose high,
One moment, and no more;
One moment gazed with a mother's
eye,

As she paused at the arched door:
Then from amid the armed train,
She called to her William of Delo-
raine.

XXI.

A stark moss-trooping Scott was he, As e'er couch'd Border lance by knee; Through Solway sands, through Tarras moss,

Blindfold, he knew the paths to cross;

By wily turns, by desperate bounds, Had baffled Percy's best bloodhounds;

In Eske or Liddel, fords were none,
But he would ride them one by one;
Alike to him was time or tide,
December's snow or July's pride;
Alike to him was tide or time,
Moonless midnight or matin prime.
Steady of heart and stout of hand,
As ever drove prey from Cumberland.
Five times outlawed had he been,
By England's King and Scotland's
Queen.

XXII.

"Sir William of Deloraine, good at need,

Mount thee on the wightest steed; Spare not to spur, nor stint to ride, Until thou come to fair Tweedside; And in Melrose's holy pile

Seek thou the Monk of St. Mary's aisle.

Greet the father well from me ;

The Unicorn Head was the crest of the Carrs, or Kerrs, of Cessford, the enemies of the child's late father.

The Crescent and the Star were armorial bearings of the Scotts of Buccleuch.

Hairibee, the place on Carlisle wall where the moss-troopers, if caught, were hung. The neck-verse was the first verse of Psalm 51. If a criminal claimed on the scaffold "benefit

Say that the fated hour is come, And to-night he shall watch with thee

To win the treasure of the tomb. For this will be St. Michael's night, And, though stars be dim, the moon is bright;

And the Cross, of bloody red, Will point to the grave of the mighty dead. XXIII. "What he gives thee. see thou keep; Stay not thou for food or sleep; Be it scroll or be it book, Into it, Knight, thou must not look ; If thou readest thou art lorn! Better hadst thou ne'er been born."

XXIV.

"O swiftly can speed my dapple-grey steed,

Which drinks of the Teviot clear; Ere break of day," the warrior 'gan say,

Again will I be here:

And safer by none may thy errand be done,

Than, noble dame, by me;
Letter nor line know I never a one,
Wer't my neck-verse at Hairibee."‡
XXV.

Soon in his saddle sate he fast,
And soon the steep descent he past,
Soon cross'd the sounding barbican, §
And soon the Teviot side he won.
Eastward the wooded path he rode,
Green hazels o'er his basnet nod;
He passed the Peel of Goldiland,||
And cross'd old Borthwick's roaring
strand;

Dimly he view'd the Moat-hill's mound,

of his clergy." a priest instantly presented him with a Psalter, and he read his neck. verse. The power of reading it entitled him to his life, which was spared; but he was banished the kingdom. See Palgrave's "Merchant and Friar."

Barbican, the defence of the outer gate of a feudal castle. || Peel, a border tower.

A moment now he slack'd his speed, A moment breathed his panting steed;

Drew saddle-girth and corslet-band, And loosen'd in the sheath his brand. On Minto-crags the moonbeams glint, Where Barnhill hewed his bed of flint;

Who flung his outlaw'd limbs to rest Where falcons hang their giddy nest, Mid cliffs, from whence his eagle eye For many a league his prey could spy;

Cliffs, doubling, on their echoes borne,

The terrors of the robber's horn? Cliffs, which, for many a later year, The warbling Doric reed shall hear, When some sad swain shall teach the

grove,

Ambition is no cure for love!

• An ancient Roman road, crossing through part of Roxburghshire.

Barded, or barbed, applied to a horse accoutred with defensive armour.

Never heavier man and horse
Stemm'd a midnight torrent's force.
The warrior's very plume, I say,
Was daggled by the dashing spray;
Yet, through good heart and Our
Ladye's grace,

At length he gain'd the landing place.
XXX.

Now Bowden Moor the march-man won,

And sternly shook his plumed head,

As glanced his eye o'er Halidon;t

For on his soul the slaughter red Of that unhallow'd morn arose, When first the Scott and Carr were foes;

When royal James beheld the fray,
Prize to the victor of the day;
When Home and Douglas, in the van,
Bore down Buccleuch's retiring clan,
Till gallant Cessford's heart-blood
dear

Reek'd on dark Elliot's Border spear.

Halidon was an ancient seat of the Kerrs of Cessford, now demolished.