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"Your mountains shall bend,

And your streams ascend,

Ere Margaret be our foeman's bride!"
XIX.

The Ladye sought the lofty hall,
Where many a bold retainer lay,
And, with jocund din, among them all,
Her son pursued his infant play.
A fancied mosstrooper, the boy

The truncheon of a spear bestrode,
And round the hall, right merrily,
In mimic foray* rode.

Even bearded knights, in arms grown old,
Share in his frolic gambols bore,
Albeit their hearts, of rugged mould,
Were stubborn as the steel they wore.
For the gray warriors prophesied,
How the brave boy, in future war,

Should tame the unicorn's pride,

Exalt the crescents, and the star.t

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 Deloraine.

Foray, a predatory inroad.

Alluding to the armorial bearings of the Scotts and Cars

1

XXI.

A stark mosstrooping Scott was he,
As e'er couched 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 Tweed side;

And in Melrose's holy pile

Seek thou the monk of St. Mary's aisle.
Greet the father well from me;

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 saint 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 dapplegray 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 crossed the sounding barbican,†
And soon the Teviot's side he won.
Eastward the wooded path he rode,
Green hazels o'er his basnet nod:

*Hairibee, the place of executing the Border marauders at Carlisle. The neck-verse is the beginning of the fifty first psalm, Miserere mei, &c. anciently read by criminals, claiming the benefit of clergy.

+ Barbican, the defence of the outer gate of a fer castle.

He passed the Peel* of Goldiland,

And crossed old Borthwick's roaring strand;
Dimly he viewed the moathill's mound,
Where Druid shades still flitted round:
In Hawick twinkled many a light;
Behind him soon they set in night;
And soon he spurred his courser keen
Beneath the tower of Hazeldean.

XXVI.

The clattering hoofs the watchmen mark ;-
"Stand, ho! thou courier of the dark."
"For Branksome, ho!" the knight rejoined,
And left the friendly tower behind.
He turned him now from Teviot side,
And, guided by the tinkling rill,
Northward the dark ascent did ride,
And gained the moor at Horselie hill;
Broad on the left before him lay,
For many a mile, the Roman way.t

XXVII.

A moment now he slacked his speed,
A moment breathed his panting steed;
Drew saddlegirth and corselet-band,
And loosened in the sheath his brand.
On mintocrags the moonbeams glint,
Where Barnhill hewed his bed of flint:
Who flung his outlawed limbs to rest,
Where falcons hang their giddy nest,

* Peel, a Border tower.

An ancient Roman road, cressing through part of Roxburghshire.

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.

XXVIII.

Unchallenged, thence past Deloraine
To ancient Riddell's fair domain,
Where Aill, from mountains freed,
Down from the lakes did raving come ;)
Each wave was crested with tawny foam,

Like the mane of a chesnut steed.
In vain! no torrent, deep or broad,
Might bar the bold mosstrooper's road.

XXIX.

At the first plunge the horse sunk low, And the water broke o'er the saddle bow; Above the foaming tide, I ween,

Scarce half the charger's neck was seen;

For he was barded* from counter to tail, And the rider was armed complete in mail;

Never heavier man nor-horse

Stemmed a midnight torrent's force.

The warrior's very plume, I say,

Was daggled by the dashing spray;

Barded, or barbed, applied to a horse aecotitred

with defensive armour.

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