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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"I looked upon the homely garb that told my dwelling-place--
It hung upon me heavily--a token of disgrace!
I fled the house--I went to sea--was by a wretch impressed,
The stamp of whose brutality is printed on my breast.

"Like vilest slave he fettered me, my flesh the irons tore--
Scourged, mocked, and worse than buried me upon a lifeless shore,
Where human foot had never trod--upon a barren rock,
Whose caves ne'er echoed to a sound save billows as they broke.

"'Twas midnight; but the morning came. I looked upon the sea,
And a melancholy wilderness its waters were to me;
The heavens were black as yonder cloud that rolls beneath our feet,
While neither land nor living thing my eager eyes could meet.

"I naked sat upon the rock; I trembled--strove to pray;
Thrice did I see a distant sail, and thrice they bore away.
My brain with hunger maddening, as the steed the battle braves,
Headlong I plunged from the bare rock and buffeted the waves.

"Methought I saw a vessel near, and bitter were my screams,
But they died within me echoless as voices in our dreams;
For the winds were howling round me, and the suffocating gush
Of briny horrors rioted, the cry of death to crush.

"My senses fled. I lifelessly upon the ocean slept;
And when to consciousness I woke, a form before me wept.
Her face was beautiful as night; but by her side there stood
A group, whose savage glances were more dismal than the flood.

"They stood around exultingly; they snatched me from the wave--
Stole me from death--to torture me, to sell me as a slave.
She who stood o'er me weeping was a partner of my chains.
We were sold, and separation bled my heart with deeper pains.

"I knew not what her birth had been, but loved her with a love
Which nor our tyrant's cruelty nor mockery could move.
I saw her offered to a Moor--another purchased me;
But, Heavens! my arms once fetterless, ere midnight I was free!

"Memory, with eager eye, had marked her master's hated door--
I grasped a sabre, reached the house, and slew the opposing Moor.
I bore her rapidly away; a boat was on the beach--
We put to sea--saw morning dawn 'yond our pursuers' reach

"I gazed upon her silently--I saw her sink to sleep,
As darkness gathered over us upon the cheerless deep;
I saw her in her slumber start--unconsciously she spoke--
Oh death!--she called upon _his_ name who left me on the rock!

"Then there was madness in my breast and fury in my brain--
She never heard _that name_ from me, yet uttered it again!
I started forth and grasped her hand--'Are we pursued?' she cried--
I trembled in my agony, and speechless o'er her sighed.

"I ventured not to speak of love in such an awful hour,
For hunger glistened in our eyes, and grated to devour
The very rags that covered us! My pangs I cannot tell,
But in that little hour I felt the eternity of hell.

"For the transport of its tortures did in that hour surround
Two beings on the bosom of a shoreless ocean found;
As we gazed upon each other, with a dismal longing look,
And jealousy, but not from love, our tortured bosoms shook.

"I need but add that we were saved, and by a vessel borne
Again toward our native land to be asunder torn.
The maiden of my love was rich--was rich--and I was poor;
A soulless menial shut on me her wealthy guardian's door.

"She knew it not, nor would I tell--tell! by the host of heaven,
My tongue became the sepulchre of sound!--my heart was riven.
I fled society and hope; the prison of my mind
A world of inexpressible and guilty thoughts confined.

"She was not wed--my hope returned; ambition my soul,
Sweeping round me like a fury, while the beacon and the goal
Of desire, ever turbulent and sleepless, was to have
The hand that mine had rescued from the fetters of a slave.

"I was an outcast on the earth, but braved my hapless lot;
And while I groaned impatiently, weak mortals heard it not.
A host of drear, unholy dreams did round my pillow haunt,
While my days spent in loneliness were darkened o'er with want.

"At length blind fortune favoured me--my breast to joy awoke;
And then he who had left me on the isolated rock,
I met within a distant land; nor need I further tell,
But that we _met_ as equals there, and my antag'nist fell.

"Awhile I brooded on his death; and gloomily it brought
A desolateness round me, stamping guilt on every thought.
I trembling found how bloodily my vengeance was appeased,
At what vile price my bosom was of _jealousy_ released.

"For still the breathing of his name by her I lov'd had rung
In remembrance, like the latest sound that falleth from the tongue
Of those best loved and cherished, when upon the bed of death
They bequeath to us their injuries to visit in our wrath.

"But soon these griefs evanished, like a passing summer storm,
And a gush of hope like sunshine flashed around me, to deform
The image of repentance, while the darkness of remorse
Retreated from its presence with a blacker with'ring curse.

"I hurried home in eagerness---the leaden moments fled;
My burning tale of love was told--was told--and we were wed.
A tumult of delightfulness had rapt my soul in flame,
But on that day--my wedding day--a mourning letter came.

"Joy died on ev'ry countenance--she, trembling, broke the seal--
Screamed--glanced on me! and lifeless fell, unable to reveal
The horrid tale of death that told her new-made husband's guilt--
The hand which she that day had wed, her brother's blood had spilt.

"That brother in his mother's right another name did bear:
Twas him I slew--all shrank from me in horror and in fear;
They seized me in my bridal dress--my bride still senseless lay--
I spoke not while they pinioned me and hurried me away.

"They lodged me in a criminal cell, by iron gratings barred,
And there the third day heavily a funeral bell I heard.
A sable crowd my prison passed--they gazed on it with gloom:
It was my bride--my beautiful--they followed to the tomb!

"I was acquitted; but what more had I with life to do?
I cursed my fate--my heart--the world--and from its creatures flew.
Intruder, thou hast heard my tale of wretchedness and guilt--
Go, mingle with a viler world, and tell it if thou wilt."

XIII.

THE BALLAD OF RUMBOLLOW.

The clouds are flying, the trees are sighing,
The birds are hopping from bough to bough;
The winds are blowing, the snowflakes throwing
O'er the green earth below, below;
The storm is coming while I am roaming
The thick dark forest all through, all through;
The air is nipping, my clothes are dripping,
All in the forest of Rumbollow.[A]

On a felled tree lying a woman sits sighing,
Rocking a child both to and fro;
Her gown it is torn, her shoes they are worn--
She looks like a creature of woe, of woe;
Her eyes are glowing, her hair is flowing,
She's all over white with the snow, the snow;
She rocks the child with a gesture wild,
All in the forest of Rumbollow.

The child is crying, and she is trying
To lull it asleep--balow! balow!
And while she is singing, the snowflakes are winging
And whirling in eddies all through, all through.
I listed the rening and wondered the meaning:
Was it the tale of her woe, her woe--
A truthful crooning or a maniac mooning--
All in the forest of Rumbollow?

[Footnote A: The old song called "Rumbollow Fair" is said by
Pinkerton to have been lost. I have heard a refrain, "All in the
Forest of Rumbollow," but whether this has any relation to the
old song I do not know. I fear I am altogether responsible for
this rhapsodical effusion.]

THE SONG OF THE BETRAYED.

"Balow! balow! my bonnie bairn--
Nae father to care for you;
As your mother has sinned so shall she earn,
And to her the world is hard and stern,
Who has loved and lived to rue,
Balow!
Who has loved and lived to rue.

"On Rumbollow green my love lies slain,
As he cam' frae Rumbollow Fair;
His bodie lies deep amang rushes green,
Where corbies pike at his bonnie blue een,
And taeds sleep in his hair,
Balow!
And taeds sleep in his hair.

"The grey owl sits on yon willow tree,
Whose branches o'er him weep,
And sends its scream far o'er the lea,
Where night winds whisper mournfullie,
And through the rashes sweep,
Balow!
And through the rashes sweep.

"When first I met wi' Hab o' the Howe
I had scarce twice nine years seen,
And he swore by our Ladye o' Rumbollow
I had set a' his heart in a holy lowe
Wi' the fire o' my twa black een,
Balow!
Wi' the fire o' my twa black een.

"Of a' the fair maidens on Rumbollow green
There was nane sae fair as me,
Wi' my kilted kirtle o' mazarine,
And buckles as bright as the siller sheen,
And my coatie o' cramosie,
Balow!
And my coatie o' cramosie.

"I was proud that he stood tall men abune,
Sae stalwart, sae bald and free;
But he cozened my heart and left me undune,
Wi' tatters for claes and bachels for shune,
And a sin-wean on my knee,
Balow!
And a sin-wean on my knee.

"Last night, when the mune was in the wane,
And the winds were moaning low,
I wandered by his dead bodie alane,
And looked at the hole in his white hause bane,
And the gash on his bonnie brow,
Balow!
And the gash on his bonnie brow.

"Did I wail to the mune, and tear my hair,
And weep o'er his bodie? Na!
I leugh at the fause are wha left me to care,
And fought for Bess Cummock at Rumbollow Fair,
And there lies dead, ha! ha!
Balow!
And there lies dead, ha! ha!"

She is up and going, no look bestowing
Through the dark forest, tra-la! tra-la!
The roundelay still sounds away,
The wail and the wild ha, ha, ha, ha!
Some wretched maiden with grief o'erladen,
Victim of man, ever so, ever so.
The world needs mending and some God-sending,
All in the forest of Rumbollow.

The mill is yonder where she may wander;
The wheels they merrily row, they row;
The lade is gushing, the water's rushing
On to the ocean below, below.
The song is ending, or scattered and blending
In the wild winds as they blow, they blow;
She moves still faster with wilder gesture,
All in the forest of Rumbollow.

It is no seeming, hark! comes a screaming
The moaning forest all through, all through;
The miller is running, no danger shunning,
The foaming waters down flow, down, flow:
Too late his braving, there is no saving--
Down the mill lade they go, they go,
Mother and child 'midst the waters wild;
All in the forest of Rumbollow!

XIV.

THE LEGEND OF THE BURNING OF MISTRESS JAMPHRAY.

I.

From the dark old times that have gone before,
We have got in our day some little relief;
We don't think of doing what they did of yore,
To saw a man through for a point of belief;
We do not believe in old women's dreams,
And devils and ghosts we can do without;
Nor do we now set an old woman in flames,
But rather endeavour to put them out.

She has ta'en her lang staff in her shaky hand,
And gaen up the stair of Will Mudie's land;
She has looked in the face of Will Mudie's wean,
And the wean it was dead that very same e'en.
Next day she has gane to the Nethergate,
And looked ower the top of Rob Rorison's yett,
Where she and his wife having got into brangles,
Rob's grey mare Bess that night took the strangles.
It was clear when she went to Broughty Ferry,
She sailed in an egg-shell in place of a wherry;
And when she had pass'd by the tower of Claypots,
John Fairweather's gelding was seized with the bots,
And his black horse Billy was seized the same even,
Not by the bots, but the "spanking spavin."
And as she went on to Monifieth,
She met an auld man with the wind in his teeth--
"Are you the witch o' Bonnie Dundee?"
"You may ask the wind, and then you will see!"
And, such was the wickedness of her spite,
The man took the toothache that very night.
With John Thow's wife she was at drawing of daggers,
And twenty of John's sheep took the staggers.
With old Joe Baxter she long had striven,--
Joe set his sponge, but it never would leaven;
And as for Gib Jenkinson's cow that gaed yeld,
It was very well known that Crummie was spelled.
When Luckie Macrobie's sweet milk wouldna erne,
The reason was clear--she bewitched the concern.
True! no man could swear that he ever saw
Her flee on a broomstick over North Berwick Law;
But as for the fact, where was she that night
When the heavens were blue with the levin-light?
The broom wasna seen ahint the door;
It had better to do than to sweep the floor.
Then, sure there was something far worse than a frolic,
When the half of Dundee was seized with the cholic.
True! nobody knew that she gaed to the howf
For dead men's fat to bring home in her loof,
To brew from the mixture of henbane and savin,
Her hell-broth for those who were thirsting for heaven.
For the sexton, John Cant, could be prudent and still--
He knew she would send him good grist to his mill.
Ere good Provost Syme was ta'en by a tremor,
It was known that the provost had called her a limmer;
And when Bailie Nicholson broke his heugh-bane,
Had she not been seen that day in the lane?
It was certain, because Cummer Gibbieson swore
That the bairn she had with the whummel-bore
Leapt quick in her womb one day the witch passed her,
And she was the cause of the bairn's disaster.
When the ferry-boat sank in crossing the Tay,
She was on the Craig pier the very same day.
It was vain to conceal it, and vain to deny it,
She kept in her house an auld he-pyet:
That bird was the devil, and she fed him each day
With the brimstone she bought from Luckie Glenday.
In truth, the old pyet was daintily treated,
Because her black soul was impignorated.
And these were the reasons--enough, I trow--
Why she should be set in a lunting lowe.

II.

The barrels are brought from Noraway,
Well seasoned with plenty of Noraway pitch;
All dried and split for that jubilee day,
The day of the holocaust of a witch.
The prickers are chosen--hang-daddy and brother--
And fixed were the fees of their work of love;
To prick an old woman who was a mother,
And felt still the yearnings of motherly love
For she had a son, a noble young fellow,
Who sailed in a ship of his own the sea,
And who was away on the distant billow
For a cargo of wine to this bonnie Dundee.
Some said she was bonnie when she was a lassie,
Ah! fair the young blossom upon the young tree;
But winter will come, and summer will pass aye,
And youth is not always to you or to me.
A true loving daughter, with God to fear,
A dutiful wife, and a mother dear;
With a heart to feel and a bosom to sigh,
She had tears to weep, she had tears to dry.

III.

All was joyful--all delectation,
In creatures who prayed to their Maker each morn,
That there was to be a grand incremation
Of a poor fellow-creature, old, weary, and worn.
All pity is drowned in a wild devotion,
A grim savage joy within every breast;
The streets are all in a buzzing commotion,
Expectant of this worse than cannibal feast.
From the provost down to the gaberlunzie,
From fat Mess John to half-fed Bill,
From hoary grand-dad to larking loonie,
From silken-clad dame to scullion Nell;
The oldest, the youngest, the richest, the poorest,
The milky-breasted, the barren, the yeld,
The hardest, the softest, the blithest, the dourest,
Are all by the same wild passion impelled.
If her skin it is wrinkled--ah, God forefend her!
The wild lapping flame will soon make it shrink;
If her eyes are dim and rheumy and tender,
The adder-tongued flames will soon make her wink.
If brown now her breasts--once globes of beauty!
The roasting will char them into a black heap;
If trembling her limbs, the prickers' loved duty
Will be to compel her to dance and to leap.
The harlequin Man has doffed his jacket,
No pity to feel--he has none to give;
The Bible has said it, and so thou must take it,
"Thou shalt not allow a witch to live."

IV.

On the long red sands of old Dundee,
Out at the hem of the ebbing sea,
They have fixed a long pole deep in the sand,
And around it have piled with deftly hand
The rosined staves of the Noraway wood,
Four feet high and four feet broad,
To burn, amidst flames of burning pitch,
So rare a chimera yclept a witch--
Born of a fancy wild and camstary,
Like ghost or ghoul, brownie or fairy.
The prickers are there, each with long-pronged fork,
Yearning and yape for their hellish work,
And the priests and friars, black, white, or grey,
All ready to preach the black devil away.
Yea, devils are there, more than they opine.
Even one under every gabardine;
And there is a crowd of every degree:
The urchins, all laughing with mirth and glee;
And pipers and jangleurs might there be seen,
And cummers and mummers in red and green,
All cheery and merry and void of care,
As if they were going to Rumbollow Fair.

V.

Ho! yonder comes from the emptying town
A crowd of five thousand all rushing down;
They hurry, they scurry, they buzz, they brize,
And all to see this witch in a blaze.
Deep in the midst of the jubilant throng
A harmless woman is hurried along,--
She is weary, and wheezing for lack of breath,
And o'er all her face is the pallor of death;
And she says, as they push her, in grim despair,
"Ye needna hurry yoursel's sae sair--
Nae sport there will be till I am there."[A]

[Footnote A: These words are the old tradition which has been
handed down in Dundee for generations.]

VI.

They have doffed her clothes till all but stark;
They have tied her with ropes in her cutty sark;
They have torn the snood from her silvery hair,
And her locks they fall on her shoulders bare,
Or stream in the cold and piercing breeze
Blowing muggy and moist from the eastern seas.
Hush! silence is over all that crowd,
Then an echoing shout both long and loud;
The fagots flare up with a lurid glare--
In the middle shines bright that white figure there,
Like those sad spirits of endless woe
'Midst eternal fires in the shades below!
There lances and glances each long-pronged fork,[A]
As through the wild flames it is quick at work,
Till the red blood squirts and seethes and sings,
As through the red flame each squirtlet springs,
The flames lap round her like forked levin;
The priests send up their prayers to heaven;
But what these prayers are to do when there,
It is likely they could not themselves declare
Yet all this while, in her agony,
She made no murmur, she uttered no cry,
As if she would show by a silent ban
Her scorn of the great wise creature Man.
Lo! the pole breaks over with creaking crash,
The body falls down in the flaming mass;
Up a cloud of sparks with a flesh-burnt smell
Rises and swirls like vomit of hell.

[Footnote A: There is in the records of the town the account of
the expenses attending the execution, and the sums in Scots
money paid for the tar barrels, and for prickers' fees, etc.]

VII.

There's a ship in the Tay on the rising tide--
She has come that day from a distant land;
The captain stands there the helm beside,
A telescope holding in his left hand.
"What, ho! my lads," he loudly exclaims,
"Yonder's a fire on the hem of the sea--
It is some good ship that is there in flames:
Good faith! and it blazes right merrily."
And there is a boat comes from the pier,
And it comes and comes still nigher and nigher--
"What is the ship that is burning there?"
"No ship, sir, it is that is yonder on fire,
But a pile of burning barrels of pitch,
On which all, amidst a deafening cheer,
They are burning an old woman for a witch;
_And the woman she is thy mother dear_."
Then Captain Jamphray silent stood,
And a sad and sorrowful man was he;
He turned the helm in a gloomy mood--
"Farewell for ever to Bonnie Dundee."
And away and away to the Spanish Main,
Where he turned a jolly buccaneer;
And he has ta'en "Yeaman," his mother's name--
A name which he held for ever dear.

VIII.

When twenty long years had come and gone,
He was laden with Spanish golden prey;
And he yearned and sighed for his native home,
Then turned his prow for the rolling Tay;
And he has bought all, for a handsome fee,
On its bonnie banks where the trees are tall--
The lordly lands of old Murie,[A]
Where he built for himself a noble hall;
And long, long down till a recent time,
There dwelt the Yeaman's honoured line.

[Footnote A: This tradition has always been in the Yeaman
family, and very likely to be true, for the reason that an
origin not gratifying to the pride of an old house would not
have been accepted on the dubious authority of hearsay.]

XV.

THE BALLAD OF BALLOGIE'S DAUGHTERS.

There were four fair maids in Ballogie Hall,
Not all so sweet as honey;
But Lillyfair was the flower of them all--
So gentle, so kind, and so bonnie.

And why was it that Ballogie's dame
Was so fond of her Lillyfair?
It was not by reason she bore her name,
Nor yet for her love and care.

It was that she long had cherished a dream
Of a face which she once held dear,
Ere yet she had bent to Ballogie's claim,
Whom she married through force and fear.

That image unsought--all by fancy wrought--
Had been fixed upon Lillyfair,
And to her had gi'en her bonnie blue een,
As well as her golden hair.

Yet the dame was true to her bridal vow,
Though sairly she would mourn,
As she wandered in moods through Ballogie woods,
And down by Ballogie Burn.

And why did these three sisters all
Hate their kind sister so sair?
When gallants came to Ballogie Hall
They sought aye Lilly fair.

But Ballogie swore by the heavens so hie,
And eke by the Holy Rood,
There was not in all Lillyfair's bodie
Ane drap of Ballogie's blood.

And he whispered words into Sibyl's ear,
Which sweetly unto her came,
That he wouldna care tho' Lillyfair
Were dooked in Ballogie dam.

And Sibyl she whispered to Christobel,
And she into Mildred's ear;
But what that was no tongue might tell,
For there was none to hear.

"What makes ye laugh?" cries Lillyfair,
As she comes tripping ben;
"Oh do come tell, dear Christobel,
For I am fidging fain."

"Oh this is the night, my sister dear.
When the wind is low and loun,
That we are to go in a merry row
To see the eclipse of the moon.

"And thou'lt go with us, Lillyfair,
And see this goodly show--
The moon in the meer reflected clear,
With the shadow upon her brow."

"Oh yes, I will go," Lillyfair rejoined;
And glad in her heart was she,
For seldom before had her sisters deigned
To give her their companie.

'Twas the hour o' twell by Ballogie's bell,
When each with her mantle and hood,
They all sallied out in a merry rout,
Away through the still greenwood.

Shine out, shine out, thou silvery maid,
And light them to the place;
But long ere all this play be played,
In sorrow thou'lt hide thy face.

No shadow of this earth ever can
A murkier darkness throw,
Than what from the sin of cruel man
May be cast on thy silvery brow.

The greenwood through, the greenwood through,
Ho! there is Ballogie's meer;
And deep within its breast they view
The moon's face shining clear.

And down they bent, and forward leant--
Loud laughed the sisters three,
As Lillyfair threw back her hair,
Yet could no shadow see.

But is not this an old, old dream--
Some nightmare of the brain?
A splash! and, oh! a wild, wild scream,
And all is still again.

This was the eclipse which the sisters meant
When they would the maid beguile;
For sin has the greater a relish in't
When lurking beneath a smile.

And now the pale-faced moon serene
Shines down on the waters clear,
Where deep, deep among the seggs so green
Lies Ballogie's Lillyfair.

On Ballogie's dam there sails a swan
With wings of snowy white,
But never is seen by the eye of man
Save in the pale moonlight.

And the miller he looks with upright hair
Upon that weird-like thing,
And as he peers he thinks he hears
It sing as swans can sing.

XVI.

THE LEGEND OF DOWIELEE.

I.

There still is shown at Dowielee,
Within the ancient corbeiled tower,
A chamber once right fair to see,
And called the Ladye Olive's bower.
Right o'er the old carved mantelpiece
A portrait hung in frame of gold,
O'er which was spread by strange caprice
A pall of crape in double fold;
And it was said, as still they say,
'Twas spread by good Sir Gregory,
And that when it was ta'en away,
The Ladye Olive thou might'st see,
With eyne of blue so softly bright,
Like those we feign in fairie dreams,
Where love shines like that lambent light
That in the opal softly swims.
But they could carry maddening fires,
As when they inspired Sir Evan's breast,
And roused therein those wild desires
That stole from Dowielee his rest.
And led to that, oh, fatal night!
When, less beguiling than beguiled,
She fled, and left in her maddened flight
The good Sir Gregory and her child.

II.

The castle menials hear in bed
Their master's foot-fall overhead--
All in the silent midnight hour,
All under unrest's chafing power,
On and on upon the floor,
On and on both back and fore--
Bereaved, betrayed, disgraced, forlorn,
His brain on fire, his bosom torn
By fancy's images--sad lumber
Of man's proud spirit--care and cumber
Waxing brighter as they keep
From the vexed soul the frightened sleep.

III.

By balustrade and corridor
That lead him to his lady's bower,
He stands before that crape-draped frame--
Its hidden face of _beauteous_ shame--
And holds aloft in his shaking hand
The glimmering lamp, nor can withstand
The fierce desire to feed his eye
With that fair-painted treachery.
He lifts the crape, he peers below--
The fire of wrath upon his brow;
He lets it fall--he lifts again,
To feed on the _pleasure_ of his _pain_,
And gazes without stint or measure
To gloat on the _pain_ that is his _pleasure_;
He turns the picture upon its face,
And reads _the curse of his broken peace_.
He turns the picture round again,
Then away to toss in his bed of pain.

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