THE GRAY BROTHER.

A FRAGMENT.

The imperfect state of this ballad, which was written several years ago, is not a circumstance affected for the purpose of giving it that peculiar interest which is often found to arise from ungratified curiosity. On the contrary, it was the Editor's intention to have completed the tale, if he had found himself able to succeed to his own satisfaction. Yielding to the opinion of persons, whose judgment, if not biassed by the partiality of friendship, is entitled to deference, he has preferred inserting these verses as a fragment, to his intention of entirely suppressing them.

The tradition upon which the tale is founded, regards a house upon the barony of Gilmerton, near Lasswade, in Mid-Lothian. This building, now called Gilmerton Grange, was originally named Burndale, from the following tragic adventure. The barony of Gilmerton belonged, of yore, to a gentleman named Heron, who had one beautiful daughter. This young lady was seduced by the Abbot of Newbattle, a richly endowed abbey, upon the banks of the South Esk, now a seat of the Marquis of Lothian. Heron came to the knowledge of this circumstance, and learned also that the lovers carried on their guilty intercourse by the connivance of the lady's nurse, who lived at this house of Gilmerton Grange, or Burndale He formed a resolution of bloody vengeance, undeterred by the supposed sanctity of the clerical character, or by the stronger claims of natural affection. Choosing, therefore, a dark and windy night, when the objects of his vengeance were engaged in a stolen interview, he set fire to a stack of dried thorns, and other combustibles, which he had caused to be piled against the house, and reduced to a pile of glowing ashes the dwelling, with all its inmates.

The scene with which the ballad opens, was suggested by the following curious passage, extracted from the life of Alexander Peden, one of the wandering and persecuted teachers of the sect of Cameronians, during the reign of Charles II. and his successor, James. This person was supposed by his followers, and, perhaps, really believed himself, to be possessed of supernatural gifts; for the wild scenes which they frequented, and the constant dangers which were incurred through their proscription, deepened upon their minds the gloom of superstition, so general in that age.

"About the same time he [Peden] came to Andrew Normand's house, in the parish of Alloway, in the shire of Ayr, being to preach at night in his barn. After he came in, he halted a little, leaning upon a chair-back, with his face covered; when he lifted up his head, he said, They are in this house that I have not one word of salvation unto;' he halted a little again, saying, "This is strange, that the devil will not go out, that we may begin our work! Then there was a woman went out, ill-looked upon almost all her life, and to her dying hour, for a witch, with many presumptions of the same. It escaped me, in the former passages, what John Muirhead (whom I have often mentioned) told me, that when he came from Ireland to Galloway, he was at family worship, and giving some notes upon the Scripture read, when a very ill. looking man came, and sat down within the door, at the back of the hallan, [partition of the cottage:] immediately he halted and said, 'There is some unhappy body just now come into this house. I charge him to go out, and not stop my mouth!' This person went out, and he insisted [went on,] yet he saw him neither come in nor go out."-The Life and Prophecies of Mr. Alexander Peden, late Minister of the Gospel at New Glentuce, in Galloway, part ii. § 26.

A friendly correspondent remarks, "that the incapacity of proceeding in the performance of a religious duty, when a contaminated person is present, is of much higher antiquity than the era of the Reverend Mr. Alexander Peden."-Vide Hygini Fabulas, cap. 26. "Medea Corintho exul, Athenas, ad Egeum Pandionis filium devenit in hospitium, erquè nupsit.

"Postea sacerdos Diana Medeam exagitare cœpit, regique negabat sacra caste facere posse, co quod in ea civitate esset mulier venefica et scelerata; tunc exulatur."

THE Pope he was saying the high, high | Again unto his native land

mass,

All on Saint Peter's day,

With the power to him given, by the saints in heaven,

To wash men's sins away.

The Pope he was saying the blessed mass,
And the people kneel'd around,
And from each man's soul his sins did pass,
As he kiss'd the holy ground.

And all, among the crowded throng,
Was still both limb and tongue,
While, through vaulted roof and aisles
aloof,

The holy accents rung.

At the holiest word he quiver'd for fear,
And falter'd in the sound-
And, when he would the chalice rear,

He dropp'd it to the ground.

"The breath of one of evil deed

Pollutes our sacred day;
He has no portion in our creed,
No part in what I say.

"A being, whom no blessed word
To ghostly peace can bring;

A wretch, at whose approach abhorr'd,
Recoils each holy thing.

"Up, up, unhappy! haste, arise!
My adjuration fear!

I charge thee not to stop my voice,
Nor longer tarry here!"

Amid them all a pilgrim kneel'd,
In gown of sackcloth
grey;
Far journeying from his native field,
He first saw Rome that day.

For forty days and nights so drear,
I ween he had not spoke,
And, save with bread and water clear,
His fast he ne'er had broke.

Amid the penitential flock,

Seem'd none more bent to pray; But, when the Holy Father spoke, He rose and went his way.

His weary course he drew,
To Lothian's fair and fertile strand,
And Pentland's mountains blue.

His unblest feet his native seat,

421

'Mid Eske's fair woods, regain; Thro' woods more fair no stream more

sweet

Rolls to the eastern main.

And lords to meet the pilgrim came,
And vassals bent the knee;
For all 'mid Scotland's chiefs of fame,
Was none more famed than he.

And boldly for his country, still,

Ay, even when on the banks of Till
In battle he had stood,

Her noblest pour'd their blood.

Sweet are the paths, O passing sweet!
By Eske's fair streams that run,
O'er airy steep, through copsewood deep,
Impervious to the sun.

There the rapt poet's step may rove,
And yield the muse the day;
There Beauty, led by timid Love,
May shun the tell-tale ray;

From that fair dome, where suit is paid
By blast of bugle free,1

To Auchendinny's hazel glade,

And haunted Woodhouselee.

2

Who knows not Melville's beechy grove,3
And Roslin's rocky glen,
Dalkeith, which all the virtues love,
And classic Hawthornden ?6

Yet never a path, from day to day,
The pilgrim's footsteps range,
Save but the solitary way

To Burndale's ruin'd grange.

5

A woful place was that, I ween,
As sorrow could desire;
For nodding to the fall was each crum-
bling wall,

And the roof was scathed with fire.