He pierced him through and through the heart,

He maul'd him cruellie;

Then hung him ower the draw-brigg,

Beside the other three.

"Now take frae me that feather-bed,
Make me a bed o' strae !

I wish I hadna lived this day,
To mak my heart sae wae.

"If I were ance at London Tower,
Where I was wont to be,

I never mair suld gang frae hame,
Till borne on a bier-tree."

other. In the battle of Nejara, the famous Sir John Chandos was overthrown, and held down, by a gigantic Spanish cavalier, named Martino Fernandez. "Then Sir John Chandos," says Froissart, "remembred of a knife that he had in his bosome, and drew it out, and struck this Martyne so in the backe, and in the sydes, that he wounded him to dethe, as he laye upon hym." The dagger, which the knights employed in these close and desperate struggles, was called the poniard of mercy.

APPENDIX.

NOTE A.

They laid their sowies to the wall,

Wi' mony a heavy peal.-P. 318, v. 5.

In this and the following verse, the attack and defence of a fortress, during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, are described accurately and concisely. The sow was a military engine, resembling the Roman testudo. It was framed of wood, covered with hides, and mounted on wheels, so that, being rolled forward to the foot of the besieged wall, it served as a shed, or cover, to defend the miners, or those who wrought the battering-ram, from the stones and arrows of the garrison. In the course of the famous defence, made by Black Agnes, Countess of March, of her husband's Castle of Dunbar, Montague, Earl of Salisbury, who commanded the besiegers, caused one of these engines to be wheeled up to the wall. The Countess, who, with her damsels, kept her station on the battlements, and affected to wipe off with her handkerchief the dust raised by the stones hurled from the English machines, awaited the approach of this new engine of assault, “Beware, Montague," she exclaimed, while the fragment of a rock was discharged from the wall" Beware, Montague! for farrow shall thy sow!" Their cover being dashed to pieces, the assailants, with

1 This sort of bravado seems to have been fashionable in those times : "Et avec drapeaux, et leurs chaperons, ils torchoient les murs a l'endroit, ou les pierres venoient frapper."-Notice des Manuscrits de la Bibliotheque Nationale.

"By

great loss and difficulty, scrambled back to their trenches. the regard of suche a lady," would Froissart have said, “and by her comforting, a man ought to be worth two men, at need." The sow was called by the French, Truie.-See HAILES' Annals, vol. ii. p. 89; WYNTOWN's Cronykil, book viii.; WILLIAM of MALMESBURY, lib. iv.

The memory of the sow is preserved in Scotland by two trifling circumstances. The name given to an oblong hay-stack, is a haysow; and this may give us a good idea of the form of the machine. Children also play at a game with cherry-stones, placing a small heap on the ground, which they term a sowie, endeavouring to hit it, by throwing single cherry-stones, as the sow was formerly battered from the walls of the besieged fortress. My companions at the High School of Edinburgh, will remember what was meant by herrying a sowie. It is strange to find traces of military antiquities in the occupation of the husbandman and the sports of children.

The pitch and tar-barrels of Maitland were intended to consume the formidable machines of the English. Thus, at a fabulous siege of York, by Sir William Wallace, the same mode of defence is adopted:

"The Englishmen, that cruel were and kene,
Keeped their town, and fended there full fast;
Faggots of fire among the host they cast,

Up pitch and tar on feil sowis they lent;

Many were hurt ere they from the walls went;

Stones on Springalds they did cast out so fast,

And goads of iron made many grone agast."

HENRY the MINSTREL'S History of Wallace-B. 8, c. 5.

A more authentic illustration may be derived from Barbour's Account of the Siege of Berwick, by Edward II., in 1319, when a sow was brought on to the attack by the English, and burned by the combustibles hurled down upon it, through the device of John Crabb, a Flemish engineer, in the Scottish service.

"And thai, that at the sege lay,

Or it was passyt the fyft day,
Had made thaim syndry apparall,

To gang eft sonys till assaill.

Off gret gests a sow thai maid,

That stalwart heildyne aboyne it haid;
With armyt men inew tharin,
And instruments for to myne.
Sindry scaffalds thai maid withall,
That war wele heyar than the wall,
And ordanyt als that, be the se,
The town suld weill asaillyt be.

"Thai within, that saw thaim swa,
Swa gret apparaill schap to ma,
Throw Craby's cunsaill, that wes sley,
A crane thai haiff gert dress up hey,
Rynnand on quheills, that thai micht bryng
It quhar that nede war off helping.
And pyk, and ter, als haiff thai tane;
And lynt, and herds, and brymstane;
And dry treyis that wele wald brin,
And mellyt aythir other in :
And gret fagalds thairoff thai maid,
Gyrdit with irne bands braid.

The fagalds weill mycht mesuryt be,
Till a gret towrys quantite.
The fagalds bryning in a ball,

With thair cran thoucht till awail;
And giff the sow come to the wall,
To lat it brynand on her fall;
And with stark chenyeis hald it thar,
Quhill all war brynt up that thar war.

Upon sic maner gan thai fycht,
Quhill it wes ner non off the day,
That thai without, on gret aray,
Pryssyt thair sow towart the wall;
And thai within sone gert call
The engynour, that takyn was,
And great menance till him mais,
And swour that he suld dey, bot he
Prowyt on the sow sic sutelté

That he to fruschyt ilk dele,

And he, that hath persawyt wele
That the dede wes wele ner hym till,

Bot giff he mycht fulfil thair will,

Thoucht that he at hys mycht wald do.
Bendyt in gret hy then wes scho,
That till the sow wes ewyn set
In hy he gert draw the cleket;
And smertly swappyt owt a stane,
Ewyn our the sow the stane is gane,
And behind it a litill way

It fell and then they cryt, "Hey!"
That war in hyr, 'furth to the wall,
'For dredles it is ours all!'

"The gynour then deleuerly
Gert bend the gyn in full gret hy;
And the stane smertly swappyt out.
It flaw out quethyr, and with a rout,
And fell rycht ewyn befor the sow.
Thair harts than begouth to grow.
Bot yhet than, with thair mychts all
Thai pressyt the sow towart the wall;
And has hyr set tharto gentilly.
The gynour than gert bend in hy
The gyne, and wappyt owt the stane,
That ewyn towart the lyft is gane,

And with gret wycht syne duschyt doun,
Rycht be the wall in a randoun;
And hyt the sow in sic maner,
That it that wes the maist sowar,
And starkast for to stynt a stark,
In sundre with that dusche it brak.
The men than owt in full gret hy
And on the wallis thai gan cry,
That thair sow wes feryt thar.
Jhon Crab, that had hys geer all yar,

In hys fagalds has set the fyr.
And our the wall syne gan thai wyr,

And brynt the sow till brunds bar."

The Bruce, book xvii.

The springalds, used in defence of the castle of Lauder, were balista, or large crossbows wrought by machinery, and capable of throwing stones, beams, and huge darts. They were numbered among the heavy artillery of the age; "Than the kynge made all his navy to draw along, by the cost of the Downes, every ship well