Nothing could surpass, in rustic drollery, and curious extravagance, the manner in which the representative of Auld Glenae delivered this rude and traditional rhyme. The snows and frosts of age seemed to thaw as he proceeded; his voice, at first trembling and weak, and interrupted by painful coughing, waxed stronger and stronger; and ere it reached the third verse, was as loud and sonorous as the note of a Cameronian precentor, when three acres of believers, on a hill side, call for his deepest and fullest note. Kindling too, as it seemed, with the progress of the rhyme, and the instrumental accompaniments, and forgetting the infirmities of years, he proceeded to dance a wild kind of hornpipe, which seemed of a kindred spirit with his verse, and kept exact time with the air of the ballad. The very luxury of the theme, and all its associations, together with some powerful punch, ministered by a willing maiden or two; and which he imbibed without any manifest interruption to his labours, seemed completely to intoxicate the dramatist; in the last verse, he reeled and fell, and, extended as he was on the floor, his heels, and staff, and head, beat audible time, and the song was completed amid unextinguishable laughter. My love for ancient peasant lore, and the joy that I feel in submitting such a rich and curious relique to the curiosity of mankind, without emendation or mitigation, can only be calculated by those rare and learned spirits, who revere the scrupulous accuracy of Joseph Ritson, and the commendable and gainful credulity of an antiquarian collector of the poetic crumbs of Caledonia. The widow Keturah testified her delight, by clapping her hands before her face, and laughing so loudly, as to be audible above the swell of the song. "Ye're a funny auld man,—and gin ye'll call in by my gate end, ye shall have a gowpin o' meal for an awmous, and a drap o' the best o't-eh, sirs, but him whase head's laigh and happed, was fond o' that sinfu' sweet sang; and I mind o' him ance acting and singing himself-he had on straw boots-on aye—on aye—and I'm sure Kate Kelloch and me laughed till ye might have bound us wi 'straes-I'll never see his marrow again, though I should be married to-morrow." The Highland damsel gazed with a look of consternation at the approach of the mendicant, but she soon changed her gaze for that of uncontroulable mirth, when she saw the fantastic gambols he performed, and heard the words of the ballad. My Cameronian maiden alone was unmoved by the labours of the dramatist, and sat and looked on him, and on the meeting, with the mild but sorrowful composure of monumental marble. As the representative of the licentious portioner of Glenae was raised from the floor by the hands of two peasants, the door suddenly opened, and an ancient alms-man, or strolling mendicant, advanced, eyeing, with a look of no ordinary wrath, this counterfeit presentment of himself. "What!" exclaimed the stranger," wilt thou presume to forestall the beggarman's stock of evening pastime? I swear by my right hand pock, called muckle macfenand I swear by its companion, called little macfen-I also swear by that notable bag under my crutch arm, callled oxter-gell, and by that greedy pocket, called pouch apron, and all my bags before and behind, to break thy knaves neck wi' this ashen crutch, if thou dost not instantly make thyself scarce in this goodly company." And suiting the deed to the word, he lifted up a stick, partaking of the offensive natures of crutch and pike-staff, and seemed about to deal the counterfeit mendicant a blow of no friendly kind. But the merry old man, with an agility worthy of seventeen, snatched up the raw skin of a sheep, which he found ready at his foot, in which he shrouded the head and shoulder of this new candidate for sympathy, and pulling off a piece of the purest flax from his head, which had passed current for snowy locks, he threw it on the floor, and darted out at the door, leaving the audience convulsed with laughter, and shouting out, "Bravely done, Penpont." Our attention was soon recalled to the mendicant before us, whose ancient looks had the same demand upon our reverence as his predecessor. He seemed equipped after the beggar in the old song: His wallets a-fore and a-hint did hing, In as gude order as wallets could be, And a lang kale gulley hung down by his side; And a muckle nowte horn to rowt on had he. He thus addressed the Cameronian elder:-" Goodman of Lillycross, ye have cut the last hookful of standing corn, and brought winter to the land -fair fa' ye, for with winter comes joy and song, and minstrel mirth, and an old man's tale will be rewarded by a patient ear, and a penny siller." "We hae nae time now, ye donard churl," said Hugh Halbertson, " to listen to lang tales; see nae ye the lasses impatient to spring; and hear nae ye the anxious thrumming of the Crowder's fiddle? We might find ye lugs for a brief sang, sae be'et that it lacks thae lang screeds o' sheer nonsense, called chorusses, and is nae made up o' rinning streams, and growing birks, and lint-white locks o' lasses." The old man, taking the instrument from the fiddler, proceeded to sing the following song, which has been long current among the humble mendicants of Dumfries-shire, to a tune which seemed to spring from the same source as the song: THE BEGGARMAN'S SONG. 1. Were I a king, a crowned king, 2. Were I a king, a crowned one, Hearken how I would keep my throne I'd reign in state, 'neath the green thorn tree, 3. Were I a king, with gold on my brow, 4. Were I a king, and a sword by my side, Were I a king, with a sceptred hand, 6. Were I a king, and wore a crown, The singular grace and glee with which this rude and characteristic old ballad was sung obtained abundant applause; nor was the skill and agility with which he played and danced, as an accompaniment, undeserving of notice. Sometimes he kept the fiddle to his chin with becoming gravity, or shifted it to the crown of his head, and placed it behind his back, maintaining the harmony necessary to the performance through all those evolutions. When the mendicant ceased, all the old men and matrons rose, and, swathing themselves in their mauds, drank a farewell cup to the welfare of Lillycross, and its hospitable proprietor; and, issuing forth among the clear moonlight, gathered their children around them, and proceeded home wards. The mirth of the harvest-kirn, restrained by the presence of so many austere and devout personages, rose loud and louder; and the augmenting din overtook the departing peasants, who listened with a smile, and thought of the days of their youth. The fiddler, cherished by a fuller and a stronger cup, drew a bolder and a merrier bow; and the swains, cheered by the frankness and condescension of the remaining damsels, became boundless in their joy, and made the barn-roof shake to its remotest rafter. Sometime before morning, the Cameronian elder winded his horn, the fiddler returned his instrument to its case, and the merry reapers of Lillycross resumed the usual sanctity of their exterior, under the devotional influence of its pious proprietor. HYMN To the Night Wind. Unbridled Spirit, throned upon the lap Of thy most melancholy voice; sublime Thou ridest on the rolling clouds which take Daughter of Darkness! when remote the noise When but the watch-dog's voice is heard, or wolves Or lapwing's shrill and solitary cry, When sleep weighs down the eyelids of the world, And life is as it were not, down the sky, Forth from thy cave, wide roaming thou dost come, Round the pile, Thou moanest wistfully, of dark abbaye, And silent charnel house; the long lank grass, Bend at thy tread; and through the blacken'd rails 3 F Forlorn, and joyless all; no cottage blaze Had burst their adamantine chains, and rush'd Dreams rayless and unhallowed; spectres pale But not alone to inland solitudes, To inland regions wide and mountains high, The wings of Night brood shadowy; heave the waves Breathes forth; meanwhile, the boldest sailor's cheek Blanches; stout courage fails; young childhood's shriek, Rolls the deep thunder, with tremendous crash, Amid the severing clouds, that pour their storms, Disturbed, arise The monsters of the deep, and wheel around Yields, and the cordage cracks. Thou churn'st the deep From their profound recesses, and dost strew Subsiding from their fury, have dispersed, Yet sometimes art thou, Demon of the night, Thou wanderest past, lifting his coal-black hair! Nor grateful less, unto the realm where shines Unsocial Power! the realms of Solitude |