"And thou, when by the blazing oak
I lay, to her and love resigned,
Say, rode ye on the eddying smoke,
Or sailed ye on the midnight wind?
"Not thine a race of mortal blood,
Nor old Glengyle's pretended line;
Thy dame, the Lady of the Flood,

Thy sire, the Monarch of the Mine."
He muttered thrice St. Oran's rhyme,
And thrice St. Fillan's powerful prayer;
Then turned him to the eastern clime,
And sternly shook his coal-black hair.
And, bending o'er his harp, he flung
His wildest witch-notes on the wind;
And loud, and high, and strange, they rung,
As many a magic change they find.
Tall waxed the Spirit's altering form,
Till to the roof her stature grew;
Then, mingling with the rising storm,
With one wild yell, away she flew.
Rain beats, hail rattles, whirlwinds tear:
The slender hut in fragments flew ;
But not a lock of Moy's loose hair

Was waved by wind, or wet by dew.

Wild mingling with the howling gale,
Loud bursts of ghastly laughter rise;
High o'er the minstrel's head they sail,
And die amid the northern skies.

The voice of thunder shook the wood,

As ceased the more than mortal yell;
And, spattering foul, a shower of blood
Upon the hissing firebrands fell.

Next, dropped from high a mangled arm;
The fingers strained a half-drawn blade:
And last, the life-blood streaming warm,
Torn from the trunk, a gasping head.

Oft o'er that head, in battling field,

Streamed the proud crest of high Benmore,

h St. Fillan has given his name to many chapels, holy fountains, &c. in Scotland. He was, according to Camerarius, an abbot of Pittenweem, in Fife; from which situation he retired, and died a hermit in the wilds of Glenurchy, A.D. 649. While engaged in transcribing the Scriptures, his left hand was observed to send forth such a splendour as to afford light to that with which he wrote; a miracle which saved many candles to the convent, as St. Fillan used to spend whole nights in that exercise. The 9th of January was dedicated to this saint, who gave his name to Kilfillan, in Renfrew, and St. Phillans, or Forgend, in Fife.

That arm the broad claymore could wield,
Which dyed the Teith with Saxon gore.
Woe to Moneira's sullen rills!

Woe to Glenfinlas' dreary glen!
There never son of Albin's hills
Shall draw the hunter's shaft agen!
E'en the tired pilgrim's burning feet
At noon shall shun that sheltering den,
Lest, journeying in their rage, he meet
The wayward Ladies of the Glen.

And we-behind the chieftain's shield,
No more shall we in safety dwell;
None leads the people to the field-
And we the loud lament must swell.

O hone a rie'! O hone a rie'!
The pride of Albin's line is o'er,
And fallen Glenartney's stateliest tree;
We ne'er shall see Lord Ronald more!

THE EVE OF ST. JOHN.

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 SandiknowCrags. 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 bartizans, 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 crags 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 neighbourhood of Smaylho'me Tower.

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.

THE Baron of Smaylho'me rose with day,
He spurred 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.

Yet his plate-jacki 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 returned in three days' space,
And his looks were sad and sour;

And weary was his courser's pace,
As he reached his rocky tower.

He came not from where Ancram Moori
Ran red with English blood;

Where the Douglas true, and the bold Buccleuch,
'Gainst keen Lord Evers stood.

i The plate-jack is coat armour; the vaunt-brace, or wam-brace, armour for the body; the sperthe, a battle-axe.

j 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

...

Insight gear, &c. (furniture) an incalculable quantity.

192

403

816

10,386

12,492

1,296

200

850

MURDIN'S State Papers, vol. i. p. 51.

For these services Sir Ralph Evers was made a lord of parliament. In 1545 they again entered Scotland, and even exceeded their former cruelty. They penetrated as far as Melrose, but on their return towards Jedburgh were followed by Angus, who defeated their army at Ancram Moor, and slew both Evers and Latoun. The spot, on which the battle 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.

Yet was his helmet hacked and hewed,

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;

And he whistled thrice for his little foot-page,
His name was English Will.

"Come thou hither, my little foot-page; Come hither to my knee;

Thou art young, and tender of age,

I think thou art true to me.

"Come, tell me all that thou hast seen,
And look thou tell me true!

Since I from Smaylho'me tower have been,
What did thy lady do ?"

"My lady, each night, sought the lonely light, That burns on the wild Watchfold;

For, from height to height, the beacons bright Of the English foemen told.

"The bittern clamoured from the moss,

The wind blew loud and shrill;

Yet the craggy pathway she did cross,
To the eiry Beacon Hill.

"I watched her steps, and silent came
Where she sat her on a stone;

No watchman stood by the dreary flame;
It burned all alone.

"The second night I kept her in sight,
Till to the fire she came,

And, by Mary's might! an armèd Knight
Stood by the lonely flame.

"And many a word that warlike lord

Did speak to my lady there;

But the rain fell fast, and loud blew the blast,
And I heard not what they were.

The third night there the sky was fair,
And the mountain blast was still,

As again I watched the secret pair,

On the lonesome Beacon Hill.

"And I heard her name the midnight hour, And name this holy eve;

And say, 'Come this night to thy lady's bower; Ask no bold Baron's leave.

666

He lifts his spear with the bold Buccleuch; His lady is all alone;

The door she'll undo to her knight so true,
On the eve of good St. John.'

"I cannot come; I must not come;
I dare not come to thee;

On the eve of St. John I must wander alone:
In thy bower I may not be.'

666

"Now, out on thee, faint-hearted knight!
Thou shouldst not say me nay;

For the eve is sweet, and when lovers meet,
Is worth the whole summer's day.

"And I'll chain the blood-hound, and the warder
shall not sound,

And rushes shall be strewed on the stair;
So, by the black rood-stone, and by holy St. John,
Í conjure thee, my love, to be there!""

"Though the blood-hound be mute, and the rush
beneath my foot,

And the warder his bugle should not blow,

Yet there sleepeth a priest in the chamber to the east,
And my footstep he would know.'

"O fear not the priest, who sleepeth to the east!
For to Dryburgh' the way he has ta'en;

And there to say mass, till three days do pass,
For the soul of a knight that is slayne."

He turned him around, and grimly he frowned;
Then he laughed right scornfully-

'He who says the mass-rite for the soul of that knight,
May as well say mass for me.

66 6

At the lone midnight hour, when bad spirits have
power,

In thy chamber will I be.'

With that he was gone, and my lady left alone,

And no more did I see."

Then changed, I trow, was that bold Baron's brow,

66

From the dark to the blood-red high;

Now, tell me the mien of the knight thou hast seen,
For, by Mary, he shall die!"

"His arms shone full bright, in the beacon's red light;
His plume it was scarlet and blue;

On his shield was a hound, in a silver leash bound,
And his crest was a branch of the yew."

The black rood of Melrose was a crucifix of black marble, and cf superior sanctity.

i Dryburgh Abbey is beautifully situated on the banks of the Tweed. After its dissolution, it became the property of the Halliburtons of Newmains, and is now the seat of the right honourable the earl of Buchan. It belonged to the order of Premonstratenses.