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The Eve of St.
of St. John.

The Eve of St. John.

THE Baron of Smaylho'me rose with day,
He spurr'd his courser on,
Without stop or stay, down the rocky way,
That leads to Brotherstone.

He went not with the bold Buccleuch,
His banner broad to rear;

He went not 'gainst the English yew,
To lift the Scottish spear.

SMAYLHO'ME, or Smallholm Tower, the scene of the following ballad, is situated on the northern boundary of Roxburghshire, among a cluster of wild rocks, called Sandiknow1-Crags, the property of Hugh Scott, Esq., of Harden [now Lord Polwarth]. The tower is a high square building, surrounded by an outer wall, now ruinous. The circuit of the outer court, being defended on three sides, by a precipice and morass, is accessible only from the west, by a steep and rocky path. The apartments, as is usual in a Border keep, or fortress, are placed one above another, and communicate by a narrow stair; on the roof are two bar-Yet tizans, or platforms, for defence or pleasure. The inner door of the tower is wood, the outer an iron gate; the distance between them being nine feet, the thickness, namely, of the wall. From the elevated situation of Smaylho'me Tower, it is seen many miles in every direction. Among the by which it is surrounded, one, more eminent, is called the Watchfold, and is said to have been the station of a beacon, in the times of war with England. Without the tower-court is a ruined chapel. Brotherstone is a heath, in the neighborhood of Smaylho'me Tower.

crags

This ballad was first printed in Mr. LEWIS's Tales of Wonder. It is here published, with some additional illustrations, particularly an account of the battle of Ancram Moor; which seemed proper in a work upon Border antiquities. The catastrophe of the tale is founded upon a well-known Irish tradition. This ancient fortress and its vicinity formed the scene of the Editor's infancy, and seemed to claim from him this attempt to celebrate them in a Border tale.

1 "This place is rendered interesting to poetical readers, by its having been the residence, in early life, of Mr. Walter Scott, who has celebrated it in his Eve of St. John.' To it he probably alludes in the introduction to the third canto of Marmion.

'Then rise those crags, that mountain tower,
Which charmed my fancy's wakening hour.'"
Scots Mag. March, 1809.

2 The following passage, in Dr. HENRY MORE'S Appendix to the Antidote against Atheism, relates to a similar phenomenon :-" I confess, that the bodies of devils may not be only warm, but sindgingly hot, as it was in him that took one of Melancthon's relations by the hand, and so scorched her, that

1 The farm-house in the immediate vicinity of Smailholm.

his plate-jack' was braced, and his helmet
was laced,

And his vaunt-brace of proof he wore;
At his saddle-gerthe was a good steel sperthe,
Full ten pound weight and more.

The Baron return'd in three days space,
And his looks were sad and sour;
And weary was his courser's pace,

As he reach'd his rocky tower.

He came not from where Ancram Moor
Ran red with English blood;
Where the Douglas true, and the bold Buccleuch,
'Gainst keen Lord Evers stood.

Yet was his helmet hack'd and hew'd,
His acton pierced and tore,

His axe and his dagger with blood imbrued,-
But it was not English gore.

He lighted at the Chapellage,

He held him close and still;

she bare the mark of it to her dying day. But the examples of cold are more frequent; as in that famous story of Cuntius, when he touched the arm of a certain woman of Pentoch, as she lay in her bed, he felt as cold as ice; and so did the spirit' claw to Anne Styles."-Ed. 1662, p. 135.

* See the Introduction to the third canto of Marmion. . .

"It was a barren scene, and wild,

Where naked cliffs were rudely piled;

But ever and anon between

Lay velvet tufts of softest green;

And well the lonely infant knew

Recesses where the wallflower grew," &c.—ED.

4 The plate-jack is coat-armor; the vaunt-brace, or wame brace, armor for the body; the sperthe, a battle-axe. See Appendix, Note A.

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"The grave is deep and dark-and the corpse is And she was aware of a knight stood there

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The sable score, of fingers four, Remains on that board impress'd;

In sleep the lady mourn'd, and the Baron toss'd And for evermore that lady wore

and turn'd,

1 Eildon is a high hill, terminating in three conical summits, directly above the town of Melrose, where are the admired ruins of a magnificent monastery. Eildon-tree is said to be the spot

A covering on her wrist.

where Thomas the Rhymer uttered his prophecies. See p. 575 * Mertoun is the beautiful seat of Lord Polwarth.

3 Trysting-place-Place of rendezvous.

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.

1 See Appendix, Note B.

1

"The next of these compositions was, I believe, the Eve of St. John, in which Scott re-peoples the tower of Smailholm, the awe-inspiring haunt of his infancy; and here he touches, for the first time, the one superstition which can still be appealed to with full and perfect effect; the only one which lingers in minds long since weaned from all sympathy with the machinery of witches and goblins. And surely this mystery was never touched with more thrilling skill than in that noble

That nun, who ne'er beholds the day,' That monk, who speaks to noneThat nun was Smaylho'me's Lady gay, That monk the bold Baron.

ballad. It is the first of his original pieces, too, in which he uses the measure of his own favorite Minstrels; a measure which the monotony of mediocrity had long and successfully been laboring to degrade, but in itself adequate to the expres sion of the highest thoughts, as well as the gentlest emotions; and capable, in fit hands, of as rich a variety of music as any other of modern times. This was written at Mertoun-house in the autumn of 1799."-Life of Scott, vol. ii. p. 26. See ante, p. 568.

NOTE A.

BATTLE OF ANCRAM MOOR.-P. 594.

APPENDIX.

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

For these services Sir Ralph Evers was made a Lord of Parliament. See a strain of exulting congratulation upon his promotion poured forth by some contemporary minstrel, in vol. i. p. 417.

The King of England had promised to these 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 Scottish men, 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

1 The editor has found 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 Bucclench, in West Teviotdale, were harried by Evers; the outworks, or barmkin, of the tower of Branxholm burned; eight Scotts slain, thirty made prisoners, and an immense prey of horses,

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 fol lowed 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,1 of Buccleuch, came up at full speed with a small but chosen body of his retainers, the rest of whom were near at hand. By the advice of this experienced warrior (to whose conduct Pitscottie and Buchanan ascribe the success of the engagement), Angus withdrew from the height which he occupied, and drew up his forces behind it, upon a piece of low flat ground, called Panier-heugh, or Paniel-heugh. The spare horses being sent to an eminence in their rear, appeared to the English to be the main body of the Scots in the act of flight. Under this persuasion, Evers and Latoun hurried precipitately forward, and having ascended the hill, which their foes had abandoned, were no less dismayed than astonished to find the phalanx of Scottish spearmen drawn up, in firm array, upon the flat ground below. The Scots in their turn became the assailants. A heron, roused from the marshes by the tumult, soared away betwixt the encountering armies: "O!" exclaimed Angus, "that I had here my white goss-hawk, that we might all yoke at once!"-Godscroft. The English, breathless and fatigued, having the setting sun and wind full in their faces, were unable to withstand the resolute and desperate charge of the Scottish lances. No sooner had they be gun to waver, than their own allies, the assured Borderers, who had been waiting the event, threw aside their red crosses, and, joining their countrymen, made a most merciless slaughter among the English fugitives, the pursuers calling upon each other to "remember Broomhouse!"-LESLEY, p. 478.

In the battle fell Lord Evers, and his son, together with Sir Brian Latoun, and 800 Englishmen, many of whom were per sons of rank. A thousand prisoners were taken. Among these was a patriotic alderman of London, Read by name, who, having contumaciously refused to pay his portion of a

eattle, and sheep, carried off. The lands upon Kale Water, belonging to the same chieftain, were also plundered, and much spoil obtained; thirty Scotts slain, and the Moss Tower (a fortress near Eckford) smoked very sore. Thus Buccleuch had a long account to settle at Ancram Moor.MURDIN'S State Papers, pp. 45, 46.

benevolence, demanded from the city by Henry VIII., was sent by royal authority to serve against the Scots. These, at settling his ransom, he found still more exorbitant in their exactions than the monarch.-REDPATH'S Border History, p. 563.

Evers was much regretted by King Henry, who swore to avenge his death upon Angus, against whom he conceived himself to have particular grounds of resentment, on account of favors received by the earl at his hands. The answer of Angus was worthy of a Douglas: "Is our brother-in-law offended," said he, "that b, as a good Scotsman, have avenged my ravaged country, and the defaced tombs of my ancestors, upon Ralph Evers? They were better men than he, and I was bound to do no less-and will he take my life for that? Little knows King Henry the skirts of Kirnetable :2 I can keep myself there against all his English host."-GODSCROFT.

Such was the noted battle of Aneram Moor. The spot, on which it was fought, is called Lilyard's Edge, from an Amazonian Scottish woman of that name, who is reported, by tradition, to have distinguished herself in the same manner as Squire Witherington. The old people point out her monument, now broken and defaced. The inscription is said to have been legible within this century, and to have run thus:

"Fair maiden Lylliard lies under this stane,

Little was her stature, but great was her fame;
Upon the English louns she laid mony thumps,
And, when her legs were cutted off, she fought upon her
stumps."

Vide Account of the Parish of Melrose.

It appears, from a passage in Stowe, that an ancestor of Lord Evers held also a grant of Scottish lands from an English monarch. "I have seen,' "1 says the historian, "under the broad-scale of the said King Edward I., a manor, called Ketnes, in the county of Forfare, in Scotland, and neere the furthest part of the same nation northward, given to John Ure and his heires, ancestor to the Lord Ure, that now is, for his service done in these partes, with market, &c., dated at Laner

1 Angus had married the widow of James IV., sister to King Henry VIII. 2 Kirnetable, now called Cairntable, is a mountainous tract at the head

cost, the 20th day of October, anno regis, 34."-STOWE'S Annals, p. 210. This grant, like that of Henry, must have been dangerous to the receiver.

NOTE B.

That nun who ne'er beholds the day.-P. 597.

The circumstance of the nun, "who never saw the day." is not entirely imaginary. About fifty years ago, an unfortunate female wanderer took up her residence in a dark vanit, among the ruins of Dryburgh Abbey, which, during the day, the never quitted. When night fell, she issued from this miserable habitation, and went to the house of Mr. Haliburton of New. mains, the Editor's great-grandfather, or to that of Mr. E kine of Sheilfield, two gentlemen of the neighborhood. From their charity, she obtained such necessaries as she could be prevailed upon to accept. At twelve, each night, she lighted her candle, and returned to her vault, assuring her freely neighbors, that, during her absence, her habitation was ranged by a spirit, to whom she gave the uncouth name of Fatlips; describing him as a little man, wearing heavy iron shoes, with which he trampled the clay floor of the vault, to dispel the damps. This circumstance caused her to be regard. ed, by the well-informed, with compassion, as deranged in ber understanding; and by the vulgar, with some degree of terror. The cause of her adopting this extraordinary mode of life she would never explain. It was, however, believed to have been occasioned by a vow, that, during the absence of a man to whom she was attached, she would never look upon the sun. Her lover never returned. He fell during the civil war of 1745-6, and she never more would behold the light of day.

The vault, or rather dungeon, in which this unfortunate woman lived and died, passes still by the name of the supernatu ral being, with which its gloom was tenanted by her disturbed imagination, and few of the neighboring peasants dare enter it by night.-1803.

of Douglasdale. [See notes to Castle Dangerous, Waverley Novela, val xlvii.] 3 See Chevy Chase.

Cadyow Castle.

THE ruins of Cadyow, or Cadzow Castle, the ancient baronial residence of the family of Hamilton, are situated upon the precipitous banks of the river Evan, about two miles above its junction with the Clyde. It was dismantled, in the conclusion of the Civil Wars, during the reign of the unfortunate Mary, to whose cause the house of Hamilton devoted themselves with a generous zeal, which occasioned their temporary obscurity, and, very nearly, their total ruin. The situation of the ruins, embosomed in wood, darkened by ivy and creeping shrubs, and overhanging the brawling torrent, is romantic in the highest degree. In the immediate vicinity of Cadyow is a grove of immense oaks, the remains of the Caledonian Forest,

which anciently extended through the south of Scotland, from the eastern to the Atlantic Ocean. Some of these trees measure twenty-five feet, and upwards, in circumference; and the state of decay, in which they now appear, shows that they have witnessed the rites of the Druids. The whole scenery is included in the magnificent and extersive park of the Duke of Hamilton. There was long preserved in this forest the breed of the Scottish wild cattle, until their ferocity occasioned their being extirpated, about forty years ago Their appearance was beautiful, being milk-white, with

1 The breed had not been entirely extirpated. There remained certainly a magnificent herd of these cattle in Cadyow Forest within these few years. 1833.-ED.

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