Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. by Revised by Alexander Leighton

R >> Revised by Alexander Leighton >> Wilson\'s Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV.

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If small the body that thus was moved,
So like the form that fairies wear,
It was that slenderness he loved,
So tiny a thing he might not fear.
But there is an insect skims the air,
Bedecked with azure and green and gold,
Whose sting is a deadlier thing by far
Than dagger of yon baron bold.

III.

She sat upon the red Lynne stone,
The midnight sky was overcast,
The winds are out with a sullen moan,
The angry Lynne is rolling past.
What then? there was no lack of light,
Full fifteen windows blazing shone
Up on the castle on the height,
While Ailie Faa sat there alone.

For there is dancing and deray
In the ancient castle of Holmylee,
And barons bold and ladies gay
Are holding high-jinks revelry.
Sir Robert has that day been wed,
'Midst sounding trumpets of eclat,
And one that night will grace his bed
Of nobler birth than Ailie Faa.

Revenge will claim its high command,
And Ailie is on her feet erect,
She passes nervously her hand
Between her jupe and jerkinet.
_There_ lies a charm for woman's wrong,
Concealed where beats the bursting heart,
Which, ere an hour hath come and gone,
Will play somewhere a fatal part.

IV.

Up in the hall of Holmylee
Still sound the revel, the dance, and song,
And through the open doors and free
There pours the gay and stately throng;
But of all the knights and barons there,
The bridegroom still the foremost stood,
And she the fairest of the fair,
The bride who was of noble blood.

It was when feet were tripping
The mazes of the dance,
It was when lips were sipping
The choicest wines of France,
A wild scream rose within the hall,
Which pierced the roofen tree,
And in the midst was seen to fall
The Baron of Holmylee.

"To whom belongs this small stilette.
By whom our host is slain?"
Between a jupe and jerkinet
That weapon long had lain.
Each on his sword his hand did lay,
This way and that they ran;
But she who did the deed is away,
Ho! catch her if you can.

VI.

THE LEGEND OF THE FAIR EMERGILDE

I.

Thou little god of meikle sway,
Who rul'st from pole to pole,
And up beyond yon milky way,
Where wondrous planets roll:
Oh! tell me how a power divine,
That tames the creatures wild,
Whose touch benign makes all men kin,
Could slay sweet Emergilde?

It's up the street, and down the street,
And up the street again,
And all the day, and all the way,
She looks at noble men;
But him she seeks she cannot find
In all that moving train;
No one can please that anxious gaze,
And own to "Ballenden."

From the high castle on the knowe,
Adown the Canongate,
And from the palace in the howe,
Up to the castle yett,
A hizzy here, a cadie there,
She stops with modest mien;
All she can say four words convey:
"I seek for Ballenden."

Nor more of our Scotch tongue she knew,
For she's of foreign kin,
And all her speech can only reach
"I seek for Ballenden."
No Ballenden she yet could find,
No one aught of him knew;
She sought at night dark Toddrick's Wynd,
Next morn to search anew.

II.

And who is she, this fair ladye,
To whom our land is strange?
Why all alone, to all unknown,
Within this city's range?
Her face was of the bonnie nut-brown
Our Scotch folk love to view,
When 'neath it shows the red, red rose,
Like sunlight shining through.

Her tunic was of the mazerine,
Of scarlet her roquelaire,
And o'er her back, in ringlets black,
Fell down her raven hair.
Her eyes, so like the falling sterns,
Seen on an August night,
Had surely won from eastern sun
Some rayons of his light.

And still she tried, and still she plied,
Her task so sad and vain,
The words still four--they were no more--
"I seek for Ballenden."
No Ballenden could she yet find,
No one aught of him knew,
And still at night down Toddrick's Wynd,
Next morn to search anew.

III.

In Euphan Barnet's lowly room,
Adown that darksome wynd,
A ladye fair is lying there,
In illness sair declined;
Her cheeks now like the lily pale,
The roses waned away,
Her eyes so bright have lost their light,
Her lips are like the clay.

On her fair breast a missal rests,
Illumed with various dyes,
In which were given far views of heaven
In old transparencies.
There hangs the everlasting cross
Of emerald and of gold,
That cross of Christ so often kissed
When she her beads had told.

Those things are all forgotten now,
Far other thoughts remain;
And as she dreams she ever renes,
"I seek for Ballenden."
Oh Ballenden! oh Ballenden!
Whatever, where'er thou be,
That ladye fair is dying there,
And all for love of thee.

IV.

In the old howf of the Canongate
There is a little lair,
And on it grows a pure white rose,
By love implanted there;
And o'er it hangs a youthful man,
With a cloud upon his brow,
And sair he moans, and sair he groans,
For her who sleeps below.

No noble lord nor banneret,
Nor courtly knight is he,
No more than a simple advocate,
Who pleadeth for his fee.
He holds a letter in his hand,
On which bleared eyes are bent,
It came afar from Almanzar,
The Duke of Bonavent--

A noble duke whom he had seen
In his castle by the sea,
When for one night he claimed the right
Of his high courtesie;
And that letter said, "Kind sir, I write
In sorrow, sooth to say,
That my dear child, fair Emergilde,
Hath from us flown away;

"And all the trace that I can find
Is this, and nothing more,
She took to sea at Tripoli
For Scotland's distant shore.
It is a feat of strange conceit
That fills us with alarms:
Oh seek about, and find her out,
And send her to our arms."

V.

And who is he this letter reads
With tears the words atween?
Yea! even he she had sought to see,
The sair-sought Ballenden.
Yet little little had he thought,
When away in that far countrie,
That a look she had got of a humble Scot
Would ever remembered be.

But tho' he had deemed himself forgot
By one so far away,
Her image had still, against his will,
Him haunted night and day.
And when he laid him on his bed,
And sair inclined to sleep,
That face would still, against his will,
Its holy vigil keep.

Oh gentle youth, thou little thought,
When away in our north countrie,
That up and down, thro' all the town,
That ladye sought for thee.
And little little did thou wot
What in Euphan's room was seen,
Where, as she died, she whispering sighed,
"I die for Ballenden."[A]

[Footnote A: The reader will remember the romantic story of the
English A'Becket; but it would seem our Scottish advocate was
even more highly favoured. Nor is the romance in such cases
limited to the ladies. I may refer to the pathetic story of
Geoffrey Rudel, a gentleman of Provence, and a troubadour, who,
having heard from the knights returned from the Holy Land of the
hospitality of a certain countess of Tripoli, whose grace and
beauty equalled her virtue, fell deeply in love with her without
ever having seen her. In 1162 he quitted the court of England
and embarked for the Holy Land. On his voyage he was attacked by
a severe illness, and had lost the power of speech when he
arrived at the port of Tripoli. The countess, being informed
that a celebrated poet was dying of love for her on board a
vessel, visited him on shipboard, took him by the hand, and
attempted to cheer him. Rudel recovered his speech sufficiently
to thank the countess for her humanity, and to declare his
passion, when his expressions of gratitude were silenced by the
convulsions of death. He was buried at Tripoli, beneath a tomb
of porphyry which the countess raised to his memory. His verses
"On Distant Love" were well known. They began thus:

Angry and sad shall be my way
If I behold not her afar,
And yet I know not when that day
Shall rise, for still she dwells afar.
God, who has formed this fair array
Of worlds, and placed my love afar,
Strengthen my heart with hope, I pray,
Of seeing her I love afar.
]

VII.

THE ROMAUNT OF THE CASTLE OF WEIR.

I.

The baron has gone to the hunting green,
All by the ancient Castle of Weir,
With his guest, Sir Hubert, of Norman kin,
And a maiden, his only daughter dear--
The Ladye Tomasine, famed around
For beauty as well as for courtesie,
Wherever might sensible heads be found,
Or ears to listen, or eyes to see.
Nor merely skin-deep was she fair:
She had a spirit both true and leal,
As all about the Castle of Weir
Were many to know, and many to tell.
Right well she knew what it was to feel
Grim poverty in declining day,
With a purse to ope, and a hand to deal,
And tears to bless what she gave away;
Yet she was blithe and she was gay.
And now she has gone to the hunting green,
All on this bright and sunshiny day,
To fly her favourite peregrine,
With her hunting coat of the baudykin,
Down which there flowed her raven hair,
And her kirtle of the red sendal fine,
With an eagle's plume in her heading gear.

II.

If the knight had not a hawk on his wrist,
He had kestrel eyes both cunning and keen,
And the quarry of which he was in quest
Was the heart of the lovely Tomasine;
But the ladye thought him a kestrel kite,
With a grovelling eye to the farmer's coop,
And wanted the bold and daring flight
That mounts to the sun to make a swoop.

The Baron of Weir points to the sky,
"Ho! ho! a proud heron upon the wing!
Unhood, my Tomasine dear, untie!
Off with the jesses--away him fling!"
"Up! up! my Guy," cried the laughing maid,
As with nimble fingers she him unjessed,
"Up! up! and away! and earn thy bread,
Then back to thy mistress to be caressed."
Up sprang the bird with a joyful cry,
And eyed his quarry, yet far away,
Still up and up in the dark blue sky,
That he might aim a swoop on his prey;
Then down as the lightning bolt of Jove
On the heron, who, giving a scream of fear,
Shoots away from his enemy over above,
And makes for the rushing Water of Weir.

III.

The Water of Weir is rushing down,
Foaming and furious, muddy and brown,
From the heights where the laughing Naeiads dwell,
And cascades leap from the craggy fell,
Where the mountain streamlets brattle and brawl,
'Midst the mountain maidens' echoing call,
Through pools where the water-kelpies wait
For the rider who dares the roaring spate.
Rain-fed, proud, turgid, and swollen,
Now foaming wild, now sombre and sullen;
Dragging the rushes from banks and braes,
Tearing the drooping branches of trees,
Rolling them down by scallop and scaur,
Involving all in a watery war--
Turned, and whirled, and swept along,
Down to the sea to be buried and gone.

The peregrine, fixed on the wader's back,
Is carried along in her devious track,
As with a weak and a wailing scream
The victim crosses the raging stream.
"I will lose, I will lose my gay peregrine!"
Cried shrilly the Ladye Tomasine:
She will hurry across the bridge of wood,
With its rail of wattle which long hath stood;
Her nimble feet are upon the plank
That will bear her over from bank to bank;
She has crossed it times a thousandfold:
Time brings youth and Time makes old;
The wattles have rotted while she was growing,
The wind is up and the waters rowing,
And to keep her feet she must use her hand.
"Come back! come back!" was the baron's command,
Too late!--go wattles--a piercing scream!
And the maid falls into the roaring stream!
Round and round, in eddying whirl,
Who shall save the perishing girl?
Round and round, and down and away,
Nothing to grasp, and nothing to stay.
The baron stands fixed and wrings his hands,
And looks to Sir Hubert, who trembling stands.
Sir Hubert! one moment now is thine--
The next! and a power no less than divine
Can save this maid of so many charms
From the grasp of Death's enfolding arms.
Spring! spring! Sir Hubert, the moment is thine
To save a life, and a love to win.
No! no! the dastard kestrel kite
Aye hugs the earth in his stealthy flight.
Hope gone! the pool at the otter's cave
Will prove the Ladye Tomasine's grave.
Ho! ho! see yonder comes rushing down
A lithe young hind, though a simple clown--
Off bonnet and shoes, and coat and vest,
A plunge! and he holds her round the waist!
Three strokes of his arm, with his beautiful prize
All safe, although faint, on the bank she lies!
A cottager's wife came running down,
"Take care of the ladye," said the clown.
He has donned his clothes, and away he has gone,
His name unuttered, his home unknown.

IV.

Up in the ancient Castle of Weir
Sat the baron, the knight, and the fair Tomasine;
And the baron he looked at his daughter dear,
While the salt tears bleared his aged eyne;
And then to the steward, with hat in hand:
"Make known unto all, from Tweed to Tyne,
A hundred rose nobles I'll give to the man
Who saved the life of my Tomasine."
Sir Hubert cried out, in an envious vein,
"Who is he that will vouch for the lurdan loon?
There's no one to say he would know him again,
And another may claim the golden boon."
Then said the ladye, "My eyes were closed,
And I never did see this wondrous man;
And the cottar woman she hath deposed
He was gone ere his features she could scan."
"Ho!" cried the baron, "I watched him then,
As I stood on the opposite bank afeared;
Of a hundred men I would ken him again,
Though he were to doff his dun-brown beard."

A year has passed at the Castle of Weir,
Yet no one has claimed the golden don;
Most wonderful thing to tell or to hear!
Was he of flesh and blood and bone?
Though golden nobles might not him wile,
Was there not something more benign?
Was not for him a maiden's smile?
Was not that maiden Tomasine?

V.

The ladye sat within her summer bower
Alone, deep musing, in the still greenwood;
Sadly and slowly passed the evening hour,
Sad and sorrowful was her weary mood,
For she had seen, beneath a shadowing tree,
All fast asleep a beauteous rural swain,
Whom she had often sighed again to see,
But never yet had chanced to see again;--
So beautiful that, if the time had been
In a long mythic age now past and gone,
She might have deemed that she had haply seen
The all-divine Latona's fair-haired son
Come down upon our earth to pass a day
Among the daughters fair of earth-born men,
And had put on a suit of sober grey,
To appear unto them as a rural swain.
With features all so sweet in harmony,
You might have feigned they breathed a music mild,
With lire so peachy, fit to charm the eye,
And lips right sure to conquer when they smiled,
All seen through locks of lustrous auburn hair,
Which wanton fairies had so gaily thrown
To cover o'er a face so wondrous fair,
Lest Dian might reclaim him as her own.

In the still moonlit hour there steals along,
And falls upon her roused and listening ear
The notes of some night-wandering minstrel's song,
And oh! so sweet and sad it was to hear.
You might have deemed it came from teylin sweet,
Touched by some gentle fairy's cunning hand,
To tell us of those joys that we shall meet
In some far distant and far happier land;
And oft at night, as time still passed away,
That hopeless song throughout the greenwood came,
And oft she heard repeated in the lay
The well-known sound of her own maiden name;
And often did she wish, and often sighed,
That bashful minstrel for once more to see,
To know if he were him she had espied
All fast asleep beneath the greenwood tree.

VI.

Alace! and alace! for that false pride
In the hearts of those of high degree,
And that gentle love should be decried
By its noblest champion, Chivalrie.
If the baron shall hear a whispered word
Of that fond lover's sweet minstrelsie,
That love-lorn heart and his angry sword
May some night better acquainted be.
Woe! woe! to the viper's envenomed tongue
That obeys the hest of a coward's heart,
Who tries to avenge his fancied wrong
By getting another to act his part.
Sir Hubert has lisped in the baron's ear,
When drinking wine at the evening hour,
That a minstrel clown met his daughter dear
At night in her lonely greenwood bower.
"Hush! hush! Sir Hubert, thy words are fires;
Elves are about us that hear and see,
Who may tell to the ghost of my noble sires
Of a damned blot on our pedigree."
And the baron frowned with darkened brow,
And by the bones of his fathers swore
That from that night this minstrel theou,
To his daughter would warble his love no more.

VII.

That night the minstrel sang in softer flow,
Waxing and waning soft and softer still,
Like autumn's night winds breathing loun and low,
Or evening murmur of the wimpling rill;
But there was heard that night no farewell strain,
As in foretime there ever used to be--
A stop! and then no more was heard again
That bashful lover's hapless minstrelsie.
Next morn the maid, with purpose to enjoy
The forest flowers and wild birds' early song,
Unto the greenwood went; and to employ
Her weary musing as she went along,
Love's magic memory from its depths upbrought
The notes that ever still so sweetly hung
About her heart; and as she gaily thought,
She sung them o'er as she had heard them sung.
Onward she moved: her dreamy, listless eye
Had leant upon a fragrant wild-rose bed,
And, glancing farther, what does she descry?
Stretched stiff and bloody, his sad spirit fled,
Yea, him whom when asleep she once had seen,
And had so often wished again to see,
Now dead and cold 'mong the leaves so green,
And all beneath the well-known greenwood tree.

"Good day, my ladye," then some one said--
It was Sir Hubert there close behind;
"He will sing no more, or I am belied,
For the reason, I wot, that he wanteth wind."
Up came the baron in angry vein;
He casts his eye on the body there;
He scans the features again and again
With a look of doubt and shudder of fear;
His hands he wrings with a groan of pain,
He rolls his eyeballs with gesture wild--
"Great God! by a villain's counsel I've slain
The youth who saved my darling child!"

Among yon hoary elms that o'er him grow
A harp is hung to catch the evening gale,
That sings to him in accents soft and low,
And soothes the maiden with its sorrowful wail,
Who, as she sits within her greenwood bower,
And listens to the teylin's solemn strain,
Bethinks her, in her tears, of every hour
That gentle youth had sung to her in vain.

VIII.

THE ROMAUNT OF ST. MARY'S WYND.

I.
Of Scotland's cities, still the rarest
Is ancient Edinburgh town;
And of her ladies, still the fairest
There you see walk up and down:
Be they gay, or be they gayless,
There they beck and there they bow,
From the Castle to the Palace,
In farthingale and furbelow.

Says Lady Jane to Lady Janet,
"Thy gown, I vow, is stiff and grand;
Though there were feint a body in it,
Still I trow that it would stand."
And Lady Janet makes rejoinder:
"Thy boddice, madam, is sae tend,
The bonny back may crack asunder,
But, by my faith, it winna bend."

But few knew one both fairer, kinder,
The fair maid of St. Mary's Wynd;
Among the great you will not find her,
For she was of the humbler kind.
For her minnie spinning, plodding,
She wore no ribbons to her shune,
No mob-cap on her head nid-nodding,
But aye the linsey-woolsey gown.

No Lady Jane in silks and laces,
How fair soever she might be,
Could match the face--the nature's graces
Of this poor, humble Marjorie:
Her eyes they were baith mirk and merry,
Her lire was as the lily fair,
Her lips were redder than the cherry,
And flaxen was her glossy hair.

Ye bucks who wear the coats silk-braided,
With satin ribbons at your knee,
And cambric ruffles starched and plaited,
With cocked bonnets all ajee,
Who walk with mounted canes at even,
Up and down so jauntilie,
Ye would have given a blink of heaven
For one sweet smile from Marjorie.

But Marjory's care was aye her minnie,
And day by day she sat and span;
Nor did she think it aught but sin aye,
To bear the stare of gentleman:
She doated on her own dear Willie,
For dear to her fond heart was he,
Who, though his sire was poor, yet still he
Was far above the low degree.

It was aye said his father's father
Did claim some Spanish pedigree,
Which many well believed, the rather
That he was not of our countrie:
His skin was brown as nut of hazel,
His eye was black as Scottish sloe,
And all so bright that it would dazzle
The eye that looked that eye into.

There came into his head a notion,
Which wrought and wrought within his brain,
That he would cross th' Atlantic Ocean,
And seek the land of Spanish Main;
And there amass a routh of treasure,
And then come back with bosom leal
To his own Marjory, and release her
From rock and reel and spinning wheel.

Up spake the minnie--it did not please her
That he should "gae sae far frae hame:"
"Thou'lt reap less in yon Abiezer
Than thou wilt glean in this Ephraim;
For there's a proverb faileth never;
A lintie safe within the hand,
Though lean and lank, is better ever
Than is a fat finch on the wand."

Then Marjory, with eye so tearful,
Whispered in dark Willie's ear,
"Thou wilt not go and leave me careful,
Friendless, lanely, starving here;
My minnie God hath gien a warning,
And I can do nae mair than spin,
And slowly, slowly comes the earning
That with my wheel I daily win."

"Oh fear not, Marjory dear--content ye,
Blackfriar John hath to me sworn,
That man of God will kindly tent ye
Until that I again return;
And he has promised fair to write me
Of how ye live and prosper twain,
And I will faithfully requite ye
With my true love to you again."

II.

Dark Willie took his sad departure,
And left at home his Marjory dear
To doubt and fear from every quarter,
Weep--weeping sadly on the pier;
And o'er the sea, all dangers scorning,
And o'er the sea he boldly sailed,
Until upon the fortieth morning
The promised land at length he hailed.

Now! thou one of the fateful sisters
That spins for man the silver thread,
Spin one of gold that glints and glisters
For one who stands in meikle need;
Spin it quick and spin it finely,
Till Willie's golden fortune's made,
And send him back to Marjory kindly,
Who spins at home for daily bread.

There was a rich old Spanish senor,
Who bore dark Willie's Spanish name,
And came to feel the kindly tenor
Of plighted friendship's sacred claim:
He gave his right hand to dark Willie,
With shares of a great companie,
Which sent forth goods far o'er the billow,
In ships that sailed on every sea.

Don Pedro had an only daughter,
The Donna Clara, passing fair,
Who, when her sire took his departure,
Would be her father's only heir:
Her eyes, so like two sterns of even,
Shining the murky clouds among,
And black her ringlets as the raven,
That o'er her marble shoulders hung.

Oh Willie! Willie! have thou care, man!
And give unto thine heart a stay,
For there are witcheries working there, man,
May steal that heart of thine away.
No need! to him blue eyes are glowing,
To him most beautiful of all,
No need! for flaxen hair is flowing
To keep his loving heart in thrall.

III.

A year had passed, and he had written
Of loving letters more than one,
The while gold pieces still remitting
All to holy Blackfriar John;
Yet still no answer had he gotten;
And as the days still passed away,
He fell to musing, and deep thought on
What had caused the strange delay.

What now to him those golden pieces
That he so fastly now could earn?
Ah, love like his gives no releases,
However Clara's eyes might yearn;
He wandered hither, wandered thither,
By sad forebodings nightly tossed;
He wandered now, he wandered ever,
In mournful musing sadly lost.

But time would tell: there came a letter
That filled his soul with dire dismay,
And told him his dark fears' abettor,
His Marjory's health had flown away:
Even as the clay her cheek was paling,
Her azure eyes were waxing dim,
Her hair unkemp't, and loose, and trailing,
And all for hopeless love of him.

Sad harbinger of things to harrow,
Another came, ah! soon a day,
To tell him his dear winsome marrow
From this sad world had passed away.
No more for him those eyes so merry,
That were to him so sweet to see!
No more those lips red as the cherry,
That were to him so sweet to pree!

IV.

Alas! there are of things--we see them
Without the aid of wizard's spell;
But there are other things--we dree them,
No art of wizard can foretell:
Strange thing the heart where love has power,
So tossed with joy or racked with pain!
Dark Willie from that fatal hour
Seemed fated ne'er to smile again.

In vain now Clara, sembling gladness,
Plies the magic of her wile,
To draw him off from his great sadness,
And cheat him of a loving smile:
The more her sympathy she tenders,
The more he will by art defy
All beauty which but contrast renders
With his own dear lost Marjory.

V.

Now Time's big silent, solemn billow
Rolls quietly on from year to year:
Don Pedro lies on his green pillow,
With love-lorn Clara sleeping near.
But, ere he died, he did declare it
His pleasure when his days were told,
And Clara dead, with none to share it,
Don William should heir all his gold.

Gift vain, oh vain! would wealth restore him
His long-lost Marjory to his arms?
Nay, would it wake and bring before him
One only of her envied charms?
No, it might cause another courtship,
A love he could not now control:
Great Mammon lured him to his worship,
And lorded in his inmost soul.

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