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The lady look'd through the chamber fair

By the light of a dying flame;

And she was aware of a knight stood there

Sir Richard of Coldinghame!

"Alas! away, away!" she cried,

"For the holy Virgin's sake !”—

“ Lady, I know who sleeps by thy side; But, lady, he will not awake.

"By Eildon-tree, for long nights three,

In bloody grave have I lain;

The mass and the death-prayer are said for me,

But, lady, they are said in vain.

"By the Baron's brand, near Tweed's fair strand,

Most foully slain I fell;

And my restless sprite, on the Beacon's height,

For a space is doom'd to dwell.

"At our trysting-place,* for a certain space,

I must wander to and fro;

But I had not had power to come to thy bower, Had'st thou not conjured me so."

Love master'd fear-her brow she cross'd; "How, Richard, hast thou sped?

And art thou saved, or art thou lost?"—

The Vision shook his head!

"Who spilleth life, shall forfeit life;

So bid thy lord believe :

That lawless love is guilt above,

This awful sign receive."

He laid his left palm on an oaken beam;

His right upon her hand :

The lady shrunk, and fainting sunk,

For it scorch'd like a fiery brand.

* Trysting-place-Place of rendezvous.

The sable score, of fingers four,

Remains on that board impress'd;

And for evermore that lady wore

A covering on her wrist.

There is a Nun in Dryburgh bower
Ne'er looks upon the sun :

There is a Monk in Melrose tower,

He speaketh word to none.

That Nun, who ne'er beholds the day,

That Monk who speaks to none,

That Nun, was Smaylho'me's Lady gay,

That Monk the bold Baron.

NOTES

ON

THE EVE OF SAINT JOHN.

BATTLE OF ANCRAM MOOR.

Lord Evers, and Sir Brian Latoun, during the year 1544, committed the most dreadful ravages upon the Scottish frontiers, compelling most of the inhabitants, and especially the men of Liddesdale, to take assurance under the King of England. Upon the 17th November, in that year, the sum total of their depredations stood thus, in the bloody ledger of Lord Evers.

Towns, towers, barnekynes, paryshe churches, bastill houses, burned and destroyed

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Insight gear, &c. (furniture) an incalculable quantity. MURDIN'S State Papers, vol. I. p. 51

The King of England had promised to those two barons a feudal grant of the country, which they had thus reduced to a desert; upon hearing which, Archibald Douglas, the seventh Earl of Angus, is said to have sworn to write the deed of investiture upon their skins, with sharp pens and bloody ink, in resentment for their having defaced the tombs of his ancestors, at Melrose.Godscroft. In 1545, Lord Evers and Latoun again entered Scotland with an army, consisting of 3000 mercenaries, 1500 English Borderers, and 700 assured Scottishmen, chiefly Armstrongs, Turnbulls, and other broken clans. In this second incursion, the English generals even exceeded their former cruelty. Evers burned the tower of Broomhouse, with its lady (a noble and aged woman, says Lesley,) and her whole family. The English penetrated as far as Melrose, which they had destroyed last year, and which they now again pillaged. As they returned towards Jedburgh, they were followed by Angus, at the head of 1000 horse, who was shortly after joined by the famous Norman Lesley, with a body of Fife-men. The English, being probably unwilling to cross the Teviot while the Scots hung upon their rear, halted upon Ancram Moor, above the village of that name; and the Scottish general was deliberating whether to advance or retire, when Sir Walter Scott* of Buccleuch came up, at full speed, with

The editor has found in no instance upon record, of this family having taken assurance with England. Hence they usually suffered dreadfully from the English forays. In August 1544, (the year preceding the battle) the whole lands belonging to Buccleuch, in West Teviotdale, were harried by Evers; the out-works, or barmkin, of the tower of Branxholm, burnt; eight Scotts slain,

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