SCENE I.

ST BALDRED OF THE BASS,

AND

OTHER POEMS.

[Illustration:

SAINT BALDRED OF THE BASS

_As starting from their fearful swoon

The astonished friars leap to their feet;

The stoled biers look wildly on,

And deem the vision is complete_:

]

EDINBURGH.

DRAWN AND ENGRAVED BY W.H. LIZARS

1824.

ST BALDRED OF THE BASS,

=A Pictish Legend;=

THE

SIEGE OF BERWICK,

=A Tragedy;=

WITH OTHER

POEMS AND BALLADS,

FOUNDED ON THE LOCAL TRADITIONS OF EAST LOTHIAN AND BERWICKSHIRE.

BY JAMES MILLER.

EDINBURGH:

SOLD BY

OLIVER & BOYD, TWEEDDALE-COURT;

AND

GEO. B. WHITTAKER, LONDON.

1824.

EDINBURGH,

PRINTED BY OLIVER & BOYD,

TWEEDDALE-COURT.

TO

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

CHARLES, EARL OF HADDINGTON,

BARON OF BINNING AND BYRES, &c.

THIS VOLUME

IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED,

BY

THE AUTHOR.

HADDINGTON,

_November 1, 1824_.

CONTENTS.

SAINT BALDRED OF THE BASS, a Pictish Legend: Page

Introduction 3

Introductory Stanzas 9

PART I.—The Funeral 17

PART II.—The Pilgrimage 53

Notes 73

THE SIEGE OF BERWICK, a Tragedy:

Preface 103

The Siege of Berwick; or the Murdered Hostage 109

Alan of Winton; or the Heiress of Seton 207

Notes 229

The Vision of Hungus 233

Notes 237

The Abbess of St Abb 239

Walter of Congalton 245

The Lost Drave of Dunbar; or the Witch of Keith 247

Notes 265

Account of the Witches of East Lothian 266

A Tale of Garleton 283

The Vicar of Golyn 285

The Gudewife of Tulloshill and the Lord of Lauderdale 297

Young Argyle; or, Stanzas to Lethington Castle 311

Notes 323

The Murder of Sir James Stanfield; in two Fits 327

Fit the First 329

Fit the Second 338

Notes 345

Sonnet, on visiting Barra Church-yard 348

Verses in Memory of Dunbar Collegiate Church 349

Notes 369

Ormiston Yew Tree; with a Lament for the Earl of Hopetoun 373

Notes 378

Sonnet to Dirleton Castle 380

Wreck of the John and Agnes Sloop of Newcastle at Tyne Sands 381

The Shepherd of Lammermoor 385

Dunpender Law 389

To the Moon and the Evening Star 395

SONGS.

The False Alarm 397

George the Fourth’s Welcome 399

On laying the Foundation Stone of Lord Hopetoun’s Monument 403

On placing Mr Ferme’s Portrait in the Masonic Lodge at Haddington 405

The Gardener’s Song 407

The Hammerman’s Song 410

The Country Laird’s Courtship 412

My Auld Maiden Aunty 414

To —— 416

SAINT BALDRED OF THE BASS,

A PICTISH LEGEND.

IN TWO PARTS.

SAINT BALDRED.

Saint Baldred, the venerable subject of the following poem, was the

disciple of Kentigern or St Mungo, the tutelary saint of Glasgow.

According to Boece, he was of Scottish descent; and, during the reign of

Brudeus, king of the Picts, held his pastoral charge in East Lothian,

which then formed part of the kingdom of Pictland. His instructor in the

faith was the reputed son of Thametis, a Pictish princess,[1] who was

cousin to the reigning monarch; it is probable, therefore, from this

circumstance, that he enjoyed the smiles of royal patronage and favour.

“The Breviary of Aberdeen,” says Dr Jamieson, in his History of the

Culdees, “contains some particulars with respect to Baldred, which I

have not met with any where else. ‘This suffragan of St Kentigern

flourished in Lothian, in virtues and in illustrious miracles. Being

eminently devout, he renounced all worldly pomp, and, following the

example of John the Divine, resided in solitary places, and betook

himself to the islands of the sea. Among these he had recourse to one

called _Bass_, where he led a life, without all question, contemplative

and strict, in which, for many years, he held up to remembrance the most

blessed Kentigern, his instructor, in the constant contemplation of the

sanctity of his conduct.’”—_Hist. Culdees_, p. 190.

“In this work,” continues the doctor, “we find a miracle ascribed to the

worthy Baldred, that must have rendered him an inestimable acquisition

to a people living on a rocky coast.—‘There was a great rock between the

said island and the adjacent land, which remained fixed in the middle of

the passage, unmoved by all the force of the waves, giving the greatest

hinderance to navigation, and often causing shipwrecks. The blessed

Baldred, moved by piety, ordered that he should be placed on this rock.

This being done, at his nod the rock was immediately lifted up, and,

like a ship driven by a favourable breeze, proceeded to the nearest

shore, and henceforth remained in the same place, as a memorial of this

miracle, and is to this day called St Baldred’s Coble or Cock-boat.”—A

small rock, at the mouth of Aldham bay, still bears the name of

_Baudron’s_ Boat.

If personal safety merited consideration from the ascetic, who was all

but adored in that rude age, and who lived a life of patriarchal

innocence and simplicity, we may suppose that he retired to the “strong

castle” of the Bass from prudential motives; for, at this period, an

exterminating war raged between the Scots and the Picts, at the

instigation of Ethelfrid, the pagan prince of Northumberland, who sought

his own aggrandisement in the destruction of the contending nations.

While residing in this solitude, Baldred died 6th March 607–8.—See

_Boece’s Chron._ and _Keith’s Cat_. He was held in such veneration by

the natives, that on his demise, the three neighbouring parishes of

Aldham, Tyningham, and Preston, laid claim to his remains. It being

impossible to satisfy the multitude without supernatural agency, the

enraged embassy were on the point of deciding their right by blows, when

a Pictish sage judiciously advised them to spend the night in prayer,

that the bishop of the diocese might have an opportunity of settling

their dispute in the morning.

“When day dawned,” says Holinshed, “there were found three biers with

three bodies decently covered with clothes, so like in all resemblance,

that no man might perceive any difference. Then by commandment of the

bishop, and with great joy of all the people, the said several bodies

were carried severally unto the said three several churches, and in the

same buried in most solemnwise, where they remain unto this day, in much

honour with the common people of the countries near adjoining.”—_Holin.

Chron._ vol. i.

The same legend assumes a more warlike attitude in the English

Martyrology.

“The people waxing wroth took arms, and each of them sought by force to

enjoy the same; and when the matter came to issue, the said sacred body

was found all whole in three distinct places of the house where he died:

so as the people of each village coming thither, and carrying the same

away, placed it in their churches, and kept it with great honour and

veneration for the miracles that at each place it pleased God to

work.”[2]

In the Breviary of Aberdeen, before quoted, we are informed, that “the

inhabitants of the three parishes which were under his charge, as soon

as they knew of his death, assembled in three different troops at

Aldham, _where he breathed his last_, severally begging his body. But,

as they could not agree among themselves, they, by the advice of a

certain old man, left the body unburied, and separately betook

themselves to prayer. Morning being come (as aforesaid) they found three

bodies perfectly alike, and all prepared with equal pomp for interment.

Each of the companies, of course, departed well pleased; and each parish

erected a monument over that body of the saint which had fallen to their

share.”

“Such was the credulity of these times,” concludes the doctor, “that it

was believed, that the body of the saint was in all these places; and

this, of course, afforded an irrefragable proof of the doctrine of

transubstantiation. Camerarius gravely says, that, ‘for the termination

of the dispute between these parochial churches, it was at length

effected, by the prayers of the saint himself (for nothing is impossible

with God) that each of them should enjoy this treasure.’”—Major asserts

the doctrine as supported by this fact.—See _Hist. Culdees_, pp. 191,

188.

According to the learned Chalmers, a Saxon monastery of St Baldred was

established at Tyningham, at an after period, whose diocese comprehended

the whole of East Lothian, and whose lands, says Simeon, the monk of

Durham, extended from Lammermoor to Inveresk. “Et tota terra quæ

pertinet ad monasterium sancti Balthere, quod vocatur Tyningham a

Lambermore usque ad Escemuthe.”

Two elegant Saxon arches, the remains of the old chapel, still ornament

the beautiful domain of Tyningham, where the principal scene of the poem

is laid.

SAINT BALDRED OF THE BASS.

=Introductory Stanzas.=

I.

The pilgrim views on Lothian’s eastern shore,

(Whose fields are waving far with golden grain,)

Like giant’s fabled tower, sublimely hoar,

The Bass, majestic, rising from the main:

Here ocean’s waves usurp the rural scene,

And the blue waters gird the mountain’s zone,

Where spread of yore the verdant blooming plain,

As sage geologists have deftly shewn,

In times to topographic lore, alas! unknown.

II.

The muse has deem’d this crag, in fancy’s hours,

The prototype of monster huge and tall,

That having left Zahara’s citron bowers,

Dips his proboscis in the Senegal;

While round his rugged sides the waters fall,

His stately form frowns awful o’er the tide,

Gleams on his back the castellated wall,

As erst by Porus led, in Indian pride,

The tower-crown’d elephant, by green Hydaspes side.

III.

The pious Baldred scoop’d his hermit cell

Upon the sunny summit of the rock,

Whence issued forth a fountain’s crystal well

Which o’er the cliffs in showery spangles broke;

The sea gulls, charm’d to tameness, round would flock,

Bringing their finny offerings to his cave;

While as the Pict skimm’d by in light carrock,

He paused, a holy benison to crave,

Then push’d his little skiff undaunted through the wave.

IV.

And oft at dead of night, when howl’d the storm,

The anchorite left his couch his beads to tell;

And press’d the cold bare rock in prayers till morn,

For vessels drifting near the Inch Cape’s bell,

Which rung, between each gust, the seaman’s knell;—

And evermore he closer claspt his hands,

As burst upon his ear the water’s swell,

For the lone wretch who shudd’ring, drowning stands,

Waist-deep, and lock’d in Tyne’s deceitful sinking-sands.

V.

When rosy-finger’d Flora from her urn

Strew’d earth with flowers, and pearl’d the azure deep,

While the red sun in Leo fierce did burn,

At depth of noon, the saint his limbs would steep

In the transparent waves, where breezes creep

O’er Fidrey’s sacred isle; meanwhile, the fry

Sported around in shoals, as glad to keep

Their summer sabbath:—the sea-calf roll’d by,

Forsook her briny pool, and lick’d the patriarch dry.

VI.

He was a star in reason’s dawning day,

That led the savage hordes of human kind,

Ere Learning pour’d her intellectual ray

Like light from heav’n upon the vacant mind:

Then God was heard in thunder or the wind,

While meteor forms did aerial conflict wage;

As tattoo’d groups upon the shore reclin’d,

Listen’d the mystic lore of Runic sage,

Cull’d from the Scandinavian’s darkest pagan page.

VII.

He travell’d paths untrod, o’er mountains bare,

To preach the gifted creed to barbarous men;

His food alone the jetty juniper

That blossom’d on the steeps of Lammer’s glen;

He dragg’d the savage from his gloomy den,

In silken chains his wayward passions bound,

While Hope’s bright rainbow glitter’d o’er the fen,

And Mercy scatter’d pearls upon the ground,

Where erst dark Odin’s chiefs in blood-stain’d garments frown’d.

VIII.

Yet deem not that the lonely orison

Was life’s sole business; for he also taught

To rear the rustic dome, which, form’d of stone,

Fair Architecture to perfection brought;

The oaken wall—the roof ingenious wrought,

Pictur’d the Gothic arch with willow wand,

In embryo modelling those shrines of thought;

Such as by Doric Tweed do sculptured stand,

Whose cloisters seem as carved by Nature’s sylvan hand.

IX.

And, oh! if e’er he felt that gentle flame,

Which, born in heav’n, on earth like vapour dies,

’Twas sigh’d in secret (and was he to blame?)

For pious Breda,—beautiful as wise,

Who left the pomp of gilded canopies

In regal lands, for the lone convent’s cell.—

And, fair, her house of prayer was seen to rise,

Where the Cistertian sisters loved to dwell

Beneath the mighty shade of Lothian’s Alpine hill.

X.

Of Baldred’s lineage little we may learn,

Whether of princess born or lowly swain,—

Suffice, that he was bred by Kentigern

What time St Colme to Iona came;

And cleans’d the church from her Pelagian stain,

And royal Brudeus to the faith subdu’d;

Who, haply, left the world’s tumultuous scene

To meditate in sentimental mood,

And hold high converse in the Bass’s solitude.

XI.

Methinks oft gazing o’er Bodotria’s tide,

King Brude and Baldred sat in cavern’d shade,

The prince’s robes the leopard’s spotted hide,

Thrown o’er his brawny shoulders, which display’d,

Deep painted in his skin, in fierce parade,

The milk-white buffalo and the tusked boar;

And evermore the saint some truth convey’d;

Anon he shook his beard all silver’d o’er,

And talk’d of pilgrimage on Judah’s distant shore.

XII.

The prince, wrapt in astonishment, would ask

Of foreign climes, their manners and array;

Now burn’d to crush the Persian basilisk,

Reserved for the crusades of latter day—

Now sought to know if the world’s barriers lay

Where Alps lie pillow’d till they prop the skies!

And much he long’d to pierce the milky-way,

Even as an eagle; while, before his eyes

Fair pictured in the sand, the zodiac’s splendour lies.

XIII.

Philosophizing thus, the hours were lost,

Till war’s horn blew, and Brudeus graspt the spear;

For valiant Arthur’s Bacchanalian host

Have left their Christmas-pie for rougher cheer;

The Scot and Pict invading warfare bear,

And drive the Table-knights to Humber’s flood;—

Their monarch slain, the Britons yield through fear,

While the sun shone at noon array’d in blood,

And York’s esculent herbs gleam’d crimson from the bud.

XIV.

Too soon to these leagued warriors omens told

Of broken friendship, desolating woe;

For the Northumbrian prince with treacherous gold

Seduced the Pict to hold the Scot his foe;

Grief for their strife brought saintly Baldred low;

Upon the Bass he pined away, and died,—

When o’er a rainbow-bridge, in robes of snow,

Upborne by angels, he was seen to glide;

As erst St Idan rose from Leader’s pastoral side.

SAINT BALDRED OF THE BASS.

PART I.

=The Funeral.=

I.

The requiem rises loud, but drear,

Within the Bass’s rocky isle;

Where watchful round St Baldred’s bier

The monks await the morning’s smile;

While torch-light reddens the lone cave,

And brightens every paler face,

Till in each feature, darkly grave,

Sorrow her gentle tear may trace.

II.

That day from Preston’s holy fane,

Three friars came the priest to claim;

For there, in Modred’s gloomy reign,

Before the Saxons were subdued,

His foster-mother was a dame

Supposed the heir of high-born blood.

Three friars came from Aldham’s shrine

In quest of the revered man;

For there, among the Pictish line,

His pastoral charge at first began.

Three friars came from Tyningham

To claim the Saint’s much-hallow’d clay;

For there, enshrined in folds of balm,

His saintly predecessors lay,

The church-light of an earlier day.

III.

Th’ assembled friars stood amazed,

Speechless, and swollen with rage they gazed,

Till arms in angry mood were raised,

And crosier-staffs were broke;

When ripe for vengeance and for war,

They rent the cross-woven scapular,

And tore the scanty cloak;

From grasp and squeeze they pass’d to blows,

One took his neighbour by the nose,

Another by the hair;

Nor ceased to ply the dangerous art,

Till each could shew a wounded part,

And every back was bare!

IV.

Alarm’d by the tumultuous roar

The solan left her rocky nest,

And travelling to the Fifean shore,

Like snowy curtains deck’d the west;

While monsters in the Forth were seen,

Disporting in the waters green,

With crested head, like horned owl,

O’erspread with film like Carmelite’s cowl;

Then all look’d ominous and drear

As if some great event was near;

And many saw pale Loda’s form,

Gleam in his meteor-clad array;

While others only heard the storm

As grief or terror held their sway.

V.

Dark grew the Warden’s cheeks of bloom,

Like wizard started from the tomb;

He blest each saint he knew!

And as his ruddy face grew pale,

His lips shook, quivering as the gale,

And pass’d from red to blue.

By good St Mungo’s soul he swore,

(As evermore his locks he tore,

And fierce his blood did boil,)

That “ere they moved the old man’s bones,

“As easily they’d move the stones.

“Which propp’d the lofty isle!”

VI.

When, lo! a vessel near, they spy,

That proudly heaves in sight;

Fair blows the wind, serene the sky,

“Ho! boatmen, o’er the waters fly,

“And reach the land ere night;—

“To favouring breeze your canvass stretch,

“To Holy Island speed;

“And bid the Bishop cease to preach,

“And leave his miracles unwrought,

“And bring him here as swift as thought,

“To aid us in our need!”

VII.

Meanwhile a host upon the shore

Await the embassy’s return;

But when the herald struck his oar,

Their souls for vengeance burn:

While gathering far, on Aldham’s height,

The rival parishes advance;

Now mingle in the deadly fight—

And hurl the sounding lance.

When forward rush’d an aged man,

So venerable in years,

That silence through the warriors ran,

And nerveless fell their spears;—

And thus, the Priest of Garmilton

Loud spake, while from his eyes there shone

Radiance, like lightning from a cloud,

Which backward awed the dusky crowd:—

“O mock not the decree of Heaven,

“In angry strife, to madness driven!

“But let the calm of peace prevail,

“Till supernatural powers be given

“To bless your deep excess of zeal.”

VIII.

But, frowning still in angry mood

Unmoved, the men of Aldham stood;

A hardy race nursed by the sea,

In manners haughty, fierce, and free;

Again the smother’d murmur rung,

While they were seen to seek the shore;

For on their backs the corrock hung,

And in their hands the oar,

When rose the Priest of Garmilton,

With his prophetic eye,

“I swear by Hadda-Chuan’s stone,

“That storms are in the sky!

“Yes, by the tempest-saint I swear,

“Of green Iona’s isle!

“That to the depths of hell ye steer,

“Debarr’d from heaven’s smile!

“Backward St Baldred’s rock shall roll,

“And choke your navigation up,

“While fires shall riot on your soul,

“And sea-wolves on you sup,

“If ye despise my warning now!”

Thus spake the priest, and smote his brow.

While back the trembling men return,

As if the curse begun they feel;

And silent for that vengeance burn

Which they dare not reveal.

IX.

The friars in the lonely isle

Like guards their watches keep;

Till most of them, o’ercome with toil,

Go piously to sleep;

While others, chatting o’er the bowl,

Simper beneath the monkish cowl

To see their fellows weep,

And quaff, in horns, from mountain still,

The liquor brew’d from heather-bell—

So changing is man’s wayward mood

From false to fair, from smooth to rude.

X.

O death! thou art a fearful thing,

Although ’tis said relief thou’lt bring,

The wretch without a friend or home,

Condemn’d in hungry rags to roam,

Will life’s last bitter chalice drain,

Sooner than mingle with thy train!

Thou strik’st the hermit in his cell,

Who long has bid the world farewell;

Thou strik’st the warrior in the field,

While charging squadrons round him yield;

And rosy youth, and wrinkled age,

And motley fool, and cunning sage,

Alike before thy arrows fall,

Whose quiver has a barb for all.

XI.

Each left the corpse, save that dark man

Cormac, from Aberlady’s shore,

Who, deem’d a cunning artisan,

Had left Kilspindie’s cells at dawn,

Yet landed not till twilight hour.

Two black-hoods follow’d in his train,

Like shadows on the rock,

Who only deign’d to breathe amen!

As low their master spoke:

“_Refugium peccatorum_,

“_Consolatrix afflictorum_,

“_Ora pro nobis_.”

XII.

Yet, thought the soldiers of the Bass,

As slow the midnight moments pass,

Some demon horrid rites preferr’d,

To rend the rock asunder,—

For evermore they, shuddering, heard

Deep buried sounds like thunder;

While underneath the waters boil’d,

As if Leviathan had coil’d

His monstrous shape around the base

The castellated isle to raise;

While started in the unfathom’d deep

The coral tenants from their sleep!

XIII.

At morning’s dawn the Bass appear’d,

Half hid in ocean’s mantle fold,

Shining as magic wand had rear’d

A mountain pearl in bed of gold.

Afar, impervious to the sun,

The woad-dyed groups, in shadows dun,

Along the summits steal;

While glad the Bishop’s barge they hail,

Seen, swan-like, urged by favouring gale

Westward the port of Bele.

Where high Tantallon’s castle stands,

Like vet’ran set to watch the deep,

Gleam’d nodding heads, and waving hands,

Wherever human foot might creep;

And rocky cave, and ocean bay,

Bore the loud shoutings far away,

That hail’d the monk of Lindisfarn

In friendship free—in virtue stern.

XIV.

Chiming o’er Lothian’s sunny shore,

The chapel bells began to ring,

And still was echo’d more and more,

“Hail to the holy man ye bring!”

The sails are struck—the oars are plied—

The barge moor’d by the Bass’s side;

And as the Bishop trod the strand,

They forward press’d to kiss his hand:

Enough of worldly bliss for them

To see him ere they die;

To touch that garment’s hallow’d hem

Which he did sanctify.

XV.

Down to the castle’s caves they wend,

With hesitating steps and slow,

And, fearful, one by one descend,

As if Vesuvius yawn’d below;

The first sent up a horrid sound,

His glaring torch fell to the ground;

Another, and another fell—

Some vow’d to heav’n, some thought of hell;

And as the smouldering flame upbroke,

They shudder’d as they saw

The devil tow’ring o’er the smoke,

Seize Baldred, and, with agile bound,

Leap o’er North Berwick Law!

That hill, which in a latter day,

By witchcraft near was borne away,

When the Gyre Carling strode the mast,

And, like a huntress, rein’d the blast.

Retreated all as best they might,

Each sought to save himself in flight;

Nor did the Bishop stoop to kneel—

Unlike St Serf, the church’s keel,

Who with his prayers the dragon slew,

St George eclipsing—if ’tis true!

XVI.

Surprise upon each brow had striven,

As dread conjecture ran,

When they beheld, as dropt from heav’n,

That lone Aemonian,

The hermit of Inch-Colme’s isle,

Whose face ne’er lighten’d with a smile;

Yet was his temper framed so mild,

In innocence he walk’d a child;

The untamed tenants of the moor

Roam’d in his daily haunts secure;

For brute and man alike were shewn

That mercy claim’d this priest her own;

But him they question’d not,

So scriptural his answers were,

Long prefaced by a tedious prayer,

The subject he forgot;—

Ere the proeme had been begun,

Another day had seen the sun!

XVII.

The Warden stood in fierce array,

Like savage of St Julian’s bay,

By nature form’d for martial fray,

In stature towering high;

As trunk of oak his massy limb,

Though muscular, yet moulded trim;—

His visage pointed, long, and grim,

Lank cheeks and hollow eye.

Unlike the carpet-race we boast

The soldier’s jest, though fashion’s toast,

Who leave Castalian springs for wine,—

Whose greatest glory is—to dine!

XVIII.

Men often show least signs of fear

When certain danger hovers near:

The Pict conceal’d his wrath—

He craved the Bishop’s benison,

Then went like Roman denizen

To victory or death!

His zone with iron hoops was braced;

His buckler on his arm was placed,

Made of the buffalo’s hide;

While, punctured, on his breast appear’d

The monster, fierce as when ’twas spear’d;

Now raising high his sounding lance

He bade the trembling crowds advance,

And march’d with martial stride;

But none durst follow in the van

With that gigantic-bodied man!—

XIX.

Then fell an awful pause, as when

The Indian striplings fearless run

To slay the tiger in his den,

In caves that never saw the sun:

Meanwhile the Warden had his fears

When he beheld the friars dying,

And, side by side, survey’d three biers

Whereon the saint in state was lying.

Each load was borne most pompously,

Deck’d with its cross and rosary;

While, one by one, three corpses lay

Like twin-brothers transform’d to clay,

Moulded so nicely like each other,

The eye no difference might discover;

And as the tapers flicker’d dim,

The features look’d uncouth:

Each countenance appear’d more grim,

And seem’d to ope its mouth.

Recovering soon, the Warden raised

His voice, to urge them on, who gazed:

They forward press—they kneel and pray—

While, lacking faith, some steal away,

As starting from their fearful swoon

The astonish’d friars leap to their feet;

The stoled biers look wildly on,

And deem the vision is complete:

Till by a glimpse of reason’s beam

They wake to a substantial dream!—

XX.

“Mother of God!” the Bishop cried,

“Thy aid is never sought in vain!

“To crush the paynim in his pride,

“Thy spirit walks on earth again!—

“Where’er thy dove-like presence strays

“Among the bowers of human wo,

“O teach our harps to sing thy praise

“In strains that seraphs only know!”

XXI.

They raised the sheet from Baldred’s face,

They turn’d the corpses where they lay,

In each his features clearly trace,

Crown’d with a tuft of silvery gray.

They deem’d his bright ethereal flame

Which mortal form could not control,

From heav’n had held a trio frame

To suit his zealous warmth of soul;

That he might stray in paynim lands,

A pilgrim lone in Palestine;

Now tread the desert’s burning sands—

Now preach the faith by Pictish Tyne;

With that sweet angel for his guide,

Who led St Serf by Bosphorus’ strand,

Attendant duteous by his side,

Like earth and heaven hand in hand!

XXII.

But, hark! the Bass’s chapel bell

Again its mournful music plies,

And Aldham’s chimes the breezes swell,

And Tyningham as soft replies.

While o’er the lake in dark parade

The painted chiefs are seen to glide,

From verdant Tyne’s green holly shade

To dwarfish Peffers’ sandy side.

XXIII.

Afar upon the spangled deep

The barges move in solemn show;

The oars their regular cadence keep,

As ’twixt each pause a sob of wo

Bursts from the sailor, and a tear

Falls down unseen on ocean’s breast;

While, in their gloomy livery drest,

The sable nodding biers appear

Reflected in the waters clear,

Like plumes upon a silver crest!

XXIV.

The seal lay on the scarry shore,

As charm’d to hear the distant oar;

The tarrock left Craig Leith’s rough breast,

To crown the isles like feathery crest;

And every rock that gemm’d the deep

Was peopled like the grassy steep;

Some launch the skiff, while others brave

The swelling surface of the wave;

Anxious to join the funeral train:

And, but for weeds that pictured pain,

’Twas like a festive holiday,

When princes short-lived visits pay,

And the high rulers of the earth

A jubilee give to lowly mirth.

XXV.

Soon reach’d the pebbly-studded strand,

The oars are struck—the mourners land

In Aldham’s pleasant bay;

Upon the beach three chieftains stood,

With litters form’d of laurel-wood,

And crown’d with rosemary;

On these St Baldred’s relics laid,

With other honours duteous paid,

They forward march’d in sad parade;

Where all were willing—those were blest,

To whom were given the high behest

To bear the corpse away;

Preceded by six vestals fair,

Who tore the long dark glossy hair

That fell upon their shoulders bare

As clouds on mountain snow;

Anon their lily hands they wrung,

And mournfully the requiem sung

In plaintive notes of woe.

Hymn.

Spirit of bliss! a cup of joy

Awaits thee in the halls of Thor,

Where earthly sorrows ne’er destroy,

Where heavenly hearts are never sore.

Did thy mother, in midnight dreams,

Call thee from this land of care,

To sail on heaven’s transparent streams

With Jhules, the angels of the air?

Save us from pale Loda’s power,

When in the gale his form appears;

Cheer us in affliction’s hour,

And shield us in the strife of spears.

Spirit of bliss! a cup of joy

Awaits thee in the halls of Thor,

Where pleasure charms without alloy,

Where tempests never wreck the shore.

XXVI.

Up Aldham’s flowery steep the biers

Ascend, in a long dusky line,

Where, tow’ring o’er their dark compeers,

The warriors’ glancing helms shine;

And golden mitres lustre shed

Upon each bishop’s ancient head.

First solemn walk’d, behind the pall,

Conwal, that priest austere and tall,

Who dwelt by Clutha’s winding stream;

His loins were girdled round with hair:

For such like penance he did deem

Useful to fit his soul for prayer.

He was St Baldred’s friend in youth,

St Mungo train’d them both to truth;

And ne’er do tears sincerer flow

Than those which early friends bestow,

When weeping o’er some parted shade

In life’s luxuriant prime decay’d.

Ah! who would wish to linger here

When those who made life sweet are gone,

When loves and friendships disappear

Beneath the dark sepulchral stone;

And all we know of sage and fair,

Is the dull record that—they were!

Upon his right, with martial brow,

Appeared the young Prince Derili,

Who wept in Baldred’s relics now

A lost preceptor, and did sigh

While running o’er instructive hours—

Which now, alas! too quick had sped—

As oft in Dirleton’s ivied towers

He listen’d to the honour’d dead,

And heard truths morally sublime,

That purified his soul from crime,

And bade him afterwards atone

For errors that were not his own;

And in Loch Leven’s lonely isle

To heaven bequeath a holy pile.

St Conwal, on his left, was led

By Asaph—soon to suffering bred,

A zealous man, who did adorn

The holy church, for which he’d borne

The martyr’s faggot-blaze;

Unburthening his soul of guilt

Three hundred times a-day he knelt

In silent deeds of praise;

So oft he’d paced the altar’s bound,

His steps had worn the marble ground!

He was supported by that sage,

Who ’midst the others shone

So venerable in his age,

The Priest of Garmilton.

Idan came next of Lindisfarn,

In demon-conflicts bold,

Who, on the gloomy rocks of Fern

Did secret vigils hold,

And afterwards, upon that shore,

The bishop’s pastoral crosier bore.

While Eta, abbot of Melrose,

The bishop’s stoled ranks did close.

Then follow’d those of less degree,

Yet not less famed for sanctity;

There stalk’d Dricthelmus the austere,

Who one dread night in death’s arms slept,

And saw Heaven’s mystic visions fair,

As o’er the golden walls he crept,

When, lo! a weight of earthly sin,

Like Eden-cherub’s flaming brand,

Just as he leap’d to enter in,

Drove him to this terrestrial land!—

There also walk’d those monks profound,

With eye devout upon the ground,

The followers of St Benedict,

In sanctimonious manners strict.

While wander’d in the rabble’s van,

That sadly lone Aemonian!

Where’er this gentle hermit went

Still followed him a sacred cow,

Whether he trod the sandy bent,

Or clomb the mountain’s heathery brow.

XXVII.

For those who sail’d on Forth’s green wave,

It was a splendid sight to view

The cavalcade, as dark and grave

It gave the cliffs a chequer’d hue;

While evermore the torches threw

A sparkling glare among the crowd,

As stars will hide their eyes of blue

In dawning morning’s dusky cloud;

Then first by Aldham’s holy shade

The solemn pageant paused the while,

As in the church’s holy pile

One body of the Saint was laid

Beneath a yew’s undying bloom,

Emblem of tenant of the tomb.

This tree a holy calm diffused

O’er passing strangers, as they mused

Upon the nicely sculptured scroll,

That told its moral to the soul.

XXVIII.

Low chanted in the house of God,

On high the choir’s full measure flow’d,

While the soft echo of a sigh,

Dimm’d the bright lustre of each eye.

=Requiem First.=

1.

Be hallow’d the place of thy rest,

O soft be thy bed in the tomb!

Thou’rt gone to the land of the blest,

With the souls of the happy to roam:

As planets in loveliness roll,

And light the lone wanderer’s way,

Thou beam’d on the night of the soul,

And left us at dawning of day.

2.

With bay we’ll embroider that stone,

That tells us of glory and thee!

While the changes of seasons roll on,

Thy memory unfading shall be.

Though fled on the seraphim’s wing,

And left us in darkness to mourn,

With earliest blossoms of spring

We duly will garland thy urn.

XXIX.

O who is he, with locks of grey,

That bids the pressing crowds recede,

As backward rolls the ocean’s spray,

Where canvas-crowned galleys glide?

A scallop-shell the stranger wears,

St Peter’s keys in red he bears

Wrought in his scapular;

The Pictish lances rattling sound,

And far the waving pennons float,

The bishop’s palfreys paw the ground,

And startle at the war-horn’s note,

While mingling voices loud exclaim,

“Ho! pilgrim, with your cross of flame!

“Come ye for peace or war?

“Or why upon our march intrude,

“In humble guise, but forward mood.”—

XXX.

“O let short-breathing space be given,”

The way-worn stranger cried:

“Three moons have scarcely waned in heaven,

“Since Baldred, in Loretto’s shrine,

“Was kneeling at my side.

“Before the virgin and her son,

“Where silver lamps for ever shine,

“He drank the Eucharistal wine,

“And said—‘My earthly task is done!’

“I turn’d to bid the old man hail—

“And saw his face was waxing pale

“As monumental bust—

“I turn’d; but, lo! the priest was gone,

“And I fell humbled in the dust!”

XXXI.

“Beloved of heaven!” the bishop cried,

“Mary! maiden-mother, fair!

“Who lovest to crush the paynim’s pride,

“And hear the lowly pilgrim’s prayer,

“Again to thee on earth be given,

“That homage which ascends to heaven!

“Holy pilgrim! speed the while,

“Rest thee in the rocky isle,

“Till the morning’s purple light

“Gilds Dumpender’s verdant height;

“Onward then, Heaven be your guide,

“As it has ever been;

“When wafting o’er the western tide,

“O tell by lone Iona’s side

“The mysteries you have seen!”—

XXXII.

’Twas noon, when o’er the Thistly Moor

The funeral held its mazy route,

When roused by sounds unheard before

The wily fox was on the scout;

The woodcock plied his jetty wing,

The red deer made his lofty spring,

A moment view’d the dark array,

Next fleetly bounding shot away,

Just stopp’d to slake his thirst in Tyne,

Then, arrow-like, straight onward flew,

Till on the horizon’s farthest line

His antlers pierced the heaven’s blue!—

XXXIII.

Eastward of Binning’s beauteous wood

Stood Baldred’s mossy cell,

Where in communion deep with God

The patriarch loved to dwell,

What time the summer breezes bland

Were wafting perfume o’er the land;

And so serene the ocean lay,

It pictured headland-rock and bay;

And heaven’s veil of azure hue

Was only speck’d by grey curlew.

Here often, tame as Rylston’s doe,

The chase-driven deer would stand,

And lick the hermit’s palm of snow,

And eat from gentle hand.

And here, before the altar’s mound,

Which time-worn hieroglyphics graced,

His canonized bones they placed,

And sanctified the ground;

And holily they sprinkled o’er

His grave, as sung the pious choir.

=Requiem Second.=

1.

When death meets the chieftain ’midst victory’s hum,

His fall is deplored by the trumpet and drum;

But softer the music, and warmer the sighs,

That waft pious soul’s to their throne in the skies.

2.

O drear were our walks in the shadow of death,

Till the star of Balclutha illumined our path!

Like the planet of Bethel it gilded the night,

Till it set in a halo of heavenly light.

3.

Let bay deck the turf where the saint lowly lies,

Like the symbol we scatter, his leaf never dies;

For his fame in its innocence beauteously ’ray’d,

Like the rose-bud of Jericho, never will fade.

XXXIV.

The dying sounds had scarcely ceased,

The prayer, half-mutter’d by the priest,

When round, the congregated crowd

Was parted like the thunder-cloud;

Some grasp the sword, some couch the lance,

Backward recoil, or firm advance;

Then quiver’d as with earthquake’s shock

St Baldred’s cradle in the rock,

And Whitberry’s rugged point was broke;

And, lo! (as old traditions’ say)

That boat of stone in Aldham’s bay,

Yclept the Saint’s, was seen to sail

As chaff before the mountain gale;

And all beneath fair Preston’s fane

The Tyne began to boil amain!

Until it foam’d o’er Linton linn,

Whence rose that loud horrific din,

As if another Tityus lay

Chain’d with the vulture at his heart,

Wailing his soul in groans away

O’er agonies that must ne’er depart!

XXXV.

A knight comes on a lofty steed,

With spear reversed and helmless head,

A branch of olive in his hand.

The bishop bids the mourners stand,

When lighting by St Baldred’s side,

“A boon! a boon!” the warrior cried,

Craving to see the illustrious dead,

As if affiance he might trace

In the old man’s pale ghastly face;

Then roll’d his eyes from earth to heav’n,

Swore, as he hoped to be forgiven,

That, lately, on the Flemish shore,

He met the saint in Antwerp’s choir,

What time the vesper prayers were said:—

“Nay, father! do not doubt my word,

“I do not deal in gasconade,

“But wear a still untainted sword,

“That ever is unsheathed for God,

“Aye ready at the church’s nod;

“Behold my doublet’s lightsome sheen,

“It once was dervise-pennon green,

“Hard won in Canaan’s holy land,

“When combating the Jews accurst;

“To mount the breach with sword or brand

“St Baldred knew I was the first!

“And thrice he blest me where I stood,

“And thrice he sign’d the holy rood;

“Then press’d my hand—it felt like flame—

“Behold! it left his hallow’d name!

“And now I come this boon to crave,

“That I may lower him in the grave,

“That some last relic you’ll bestow,

“’Twill bear me foremost ‘midst the brave,

“’Twill raise me when my arm is low!”

The bishop waved his hand on high,

And gave propitious reply—

“Gentle knight, thy claim is won;

“Priests and mourners! onward, on!”

XXXVI.

The sun, beyond the Pentland’s ridge,

Had given the skies a rainbow hue,

When crossing Tyne on osier bridge

The crowd the funeral’s march pursue;

The evening dews are falling chill,

The mountain cock with crimson eye,

And jetty wing, has sought the hill

Where mists are shadowing far the sky;

While in the skirts of Lammermoor

The tod peeps from his den secure,

And sees afar the dusky crowd

Move on, like summer’s passing cloud,

In slow and stately majesty,

When scarce a breeze is wafting by;

And as they pass near ancient Cnolle,

Fair Preston’s bell begins to toll,

For they have almost reach’d the goal

Of this eventful day;

And, as by winding Tyne they turn,

Clearer the funeral torches burn,

Seen through the twilight’s grey.

XXXVII.

They have made St Baldred’s grave

Under Preston’s sculptured nave,

Where forgotten ’scutcheons wave

Of those who’ve pass’d away!

Gentle space, and mossy stone,

Tell of him who dazzling shone

The meteor of his day!

He, whom nations could not bound,

Lies in a few feet of ground!

And he, whom kings wou’d bleed to save,

Will lie forgotten in the grave!

They have borne the saint’s last pall,

And placed his statue in the wall;

Dust to dust the bell is tolling,

As it must toll for all;

While through the aisles the anthem’s rolling,

Lovely in its dying fall,

Fanning, with melodious breath,

The solitary house of death!

=Requiem Third.=

1.

The waves lie smooth when storms have fled,

Beneath St Abb’s high rocky head;

The green-capp’d islands of the deep

Are lovely when the breezes sleep,

Viewless upon their beds of balm;

But, ah! this is a treacherous calm!

For here the dove no rest can find

While storms are lingering in the wind.

2.

The fairest scenes of earth’s dull round

Trail their dark shadows on the ground;

The thorny rose—the honied sting—

The winter’s cold—the blight of spring:—

While Love’s chill frown, and Hope’s deceit,

And Friendship changing oft to hate,

Prove that the dove no rest can find

Where man to man still proves unkind.

3.

Beyond yon bright cerulean skies

Elysium’s land of promise lies:

Her sun no clouds are ever shading;

Her fruits and flowers are never fading;

Her hearts are pure as those that bear them,

The blight of sin cannot come near them:

Oh! there the dove its rest may find,

And taste that heaven at least is kind.

XXXVIII.

Thus closed the quire their lyric strain,

In sounds that oft were woke again;

For still the requiem’s notes were sung,

The echoes of the aisles still rung

The chanted dirge—the fervent prayer

For him who lay embalmed there.

Since then these shores have never seen

So much funereal pomp and show,

Save when the priests of holy mien,

Wander’d o’er Soutra’s chilly brow,

In fair Melrose’s shrine to place

The relics of the great De Vaux,

To sleep with many a nameless race

Till Heaven’s own awful trumpets blow!

XXXIX.

Still on the Hebrew’s purim day,

(That day that tells of Haman’s fall)

In after ages, blithe and gay,

Was held St Baldred’s festival.

At earliest morn the swains would go

To deck his loved and hallow’d shrine,

With blooming bay and misletoe,

Cull’d from the daisied banks of Tyne.

The chapel’s Saxon windows dight

So artfully with boughs were drest,

That tuneful birds, decoyed, would light,

To build their temporary nest.

But now the yellow crocus flower

Sprouts blooming on the breast of Spring,

And blithe in every shady bower

The minstrels of the forest sing;

While, Tyningham! thy chapel bell

Is heard no more these shades among;

For, Time, alas! has ceased to swell

The saintly Baldred’s funeral song!

END OF PART FIRST.

SAINT BALDRED OF THE BASS.

PART II.

=The Pilgrimage.=

They dug his grave e’en where he lay,

But every mark is gone;

Time’s wasting hand has done away

The simple cross of Sybil grey.—_Sir W. Scott._

I.

’Tis Autumn—golden Harvest crown’d

Upon his throne of sheaves sits smiling;

The farmer’s feast goes gaily round,

His summer’s ardent toils beguiling:

When tired of the world’s bustling scene,

I seek the flowery fields again,

To snatch a pleasant holiday

Before their lustre die away;

To tread once more by rural Tyne

A pilgrimage to Baldred’s shrine;

Another votive wreath to shed,

Like hapless poet’s, soon to fade!

II.

In Tyningham’s delicious woods

Her early song the milk-maid sings,

While from the deep’ning solitudes

The spotted plover upward springs;

The woodlark, on the lofty spray,

Pours forth the soul of harmony;

The shrill-toned linnet, in the bush,

Chimes music with the mellow thrush;

And nameless birds of speckled wing,

And golden hues, their offerings bring,

To hail the pilgrim as he gleams

By coppiced woods and shaded streams;

And as I blithely pace the mead,

Fresh with the morning dew,

The flowery carpet which I tread

Glistens with glassy hue;

Enamour’d of the cloudless day

Each floweret woos the sunny ray:

Here, gleaming through its mossy hair.

The wild-rose waves in scented air,

While blue-bells hang their star-like gems,

And pinks and cowslips scatter’d near,

In nature’s varied colours clear,

Gleam lovely on their dewy stems.

Above, arcades tower o’er my head

Like sculptured arches wove on high,

Which round a solemn grandeur spread,

Veiling with clouds of leaves the sky.

III.

Where, shining through the flowery glade,

The mouth of Tyne translucent streams,

Within a lilac covert’s shade

St Baldred’s shrine romantic gleams.

Two Saxon arches still remain;

But, Time, alas! with viewless hand

Completes the labours of the Dane,

And triumphs o’er the brand:

For thou didst feel the shock of war

When fiery Anlaf storming came,

And horrid shrieks were heard afar

As church and town were given to flame.

Alas! that vengeance did not fall

Upon the minstrel-muffled Dane,

When harping bold in Brunsbury hall

He stood before King Athelstane:

Had the snake been crush’d in its gilded fold,

The tide of war might have backward roll’d.

IV.

In this fair mansion of the dead,

Where rests illustrious Hamilton,

’Neath arched niche, with pillowed head,

A statue lies of sculptured stone,

The image of a lady fair,

Whose hands are claspt in silent prayer.

The blessed lamb kneels at her feet—

The lady of Tyningham we greet;

Or, borrowing tradition’s tale,

Shall we the form of Baldred hail?

V.

This were the sweetest spot below

For saint or anchorite to repose;

So mild the morning breezes blow,

So calm the summer evening’s close;

Here, seated in mosaic grot,

With scrip, and book, and rosary,

Devotion, by the world forgot,

Might charm the leaden hours away,

Could man, to reason’s dictates true,

His wayward passions e’er subdue!

VI.

Old Tyningham! thy nut-brown ale

In reaming bumpers flowing,

Once roused the woodman’s sober tale,

And set his heart a-glowing;

Around yon elm, with nimble feet,

They danced—conversed—where green-boughs wave;

The tree which screen’d from summer’s heat,

Now shades their viewless grave!

Thy ancient village, stone by stone,

Removed—its rural inmates gone!

But oft a mossy stone appears

Amidst the leafy solitude,

That marks, where met in other years

The aged tenants of the wood.

VII.

The cheering sea-breeze fans my cheek,

As o’er the thick-strewn furze I seek

A pathway to the glorious ocean,

Whose waters glow in peaceful motion;

Spreading wide her whit’ning wings

The startled seagull soaring springs,

And mingles in the clouds away

As morning melts into the day.

And now I stand on Whitberry’s steep,

And gaze upon the mighty deep,

Where trembles ’neath the wild wave’s shock,

St Baldred’s cradle in the rock;

On which his venerable form

Once rode the billows of the storm.

VIII.

Far, in the blue haze, dimly seen,

I view the beacon-beaming isle,

Stretching its sides in waves serene,

Like a gaunt rugged crocodile

Bathed in the waters of the Nile;

While farther on the horizon’s line

The Fifean shores in shadows shine;

And as through tansied meads I fly,

New images burst on mine eye;

For, hark! the wild bee leaves the flower,

And pilots me to Aldham’s tower.

IX.

Aldham! the wall-flower’s scented bloom

Gleams lovely on thy turrets grey,

And, like the rose strewn on a tomb,

A fragrance sheds around decay.

No more before thy gates is heard

The herald’s trump; thy stable-yard

Is empty now, and netted o’er

With weeds, and hingeless stands each door;

No harps are murmuring in the hall;

No armour glittering on the wall;

For gone are knight and seneschal,—

The voice of man is dumb!

And nought but ghosts, so gaunt and tall,

At dreary midnight come,

Denouncing vengeance on the spade

That gave to levelling Time its aid;

For Aldham church is gone!

Nor bust nor cipher left to show,

Where death has laid the mighty low.

Time does not spare the mundic urn,

The ruthless ploughshare robs the worm,

O man to fortune blind!

Despite what power and art devised,

The saint whom nations canonized

Is scatter’d by the wind.

But let me leave this darker scene,

And seaward hold my course again,

While brighter scenes before me rise,

Where yon high rock in grandeur lies.

X.

Proud Bass! amidst the crystal sea

Thou’rt like a fairy-haunted isle,

Now echoing blithe the sportsman’s glee,

Now bright with Beauty’s radiant smile.

Upon the wave right glad we hail

Thy rugged face, and strike the sail;

And land upon thy rocky shore,

Stunn’d by the breakers rising roar.

Escap’d the perils of the deep,

We almost kneel to kiss thy steep.

Alas! we may not mark the spot

Where stood the hermit’s holy cell;

Its sacred precincts are forgot,

And if we find his crystal well,

’Tis but the stubborn truth to tell

That streams and rocks remain the same—

Man rather makes the change of scene

Than nature; for she shineth now

With birds in many a snowy flock,

As bright as when the priest did bow

Before the altar of the rock!—

XI.

Here Pleasure steers her painted barge—

Joy smiling on the prow;

And soon her votaries roam at large

On thy romantic brow;

Now gazing o’er the dark-blue sea,—

Now seated on the ground,

The cold collation circles free,

While every heart is big with glee,

And jests are passing round;

And as the malt foams by in tides,

Droll Humour holds his shaking sides;

While on their feet, a joyful band

Tread lightsome measure, hand in hand,

To the violin’s dancing voice,

Mellow’d with the flute’s deep tone,

That bids them, while they may, rejoice,

For Pleasure’s blossoms soon are blown.

XII.

Here, oft the boatman rests his oar,

While o’er the rock the fowler hung,

Like the bold youth of Kilda’s shore,

Descends to seek the solan’s young.

That bird, which on gigantic wing,

Like Cormorant, delights to soar,

Then downward makes her deadly spring,

Unfathom’d waters to explore.

Wo to the silvery shoals that lie

’Neath the bright lustre of her eye,

When, like a shark, she cleaves the wave,

To make—but not to find a grave.

Where fissures in the rock are riven,

Birds cluster thick as stars of heaven.

The tarrock shines, like snowy speck;

The pewit gleams with dusky neck;—

The puffin with her crimson bill,

Deem’d sacred by the lone Kurile,

Beholds the fishers shooting by,

And mimics man with mournful cry.

Till, hark! explodes the thund’ring gun,

And feathery myriads veil the sun;

Unnumber’d as the flakes of snow,

When drifting gales o’er Soutra blow.

XIII.

This rock! where Pictish chiefs held sway,

Was patriots’ boast of latter day;

Men, who, by Freedom’s watch-word led,

With Wallace for their country bled;

First to oppose tyrannic laws,

The last to leave their sovereign’s cause.

Would’st thou inquire the honour’d name

For whom the muse her meed would claim?

Go to North Berwick’s aisles elate,

And read of Lauder good and great!

These ancient lairds did long retain

The Bass. The solan was their crest,—

And much they loved her lofty nest,

Which kings had coveted in vain.

“I’ll hae my auld crag back again!”

Said Lauder to his lord’s request:

“But come ye here in weal or woe,

“My sword is ready for your foe;

“As erst, in treason’s gloomy hour,

“On faction’s billows wildly driven,

“My holde did shelter Scotia’s flower,

“When from its parent stem ’twas riven.”

XIV.

Proud rock! thou’st seen a motley race,

Since here St Baldred rear’d his cell;

Like shadows o’er thy rugged face,

I see their forms around me swell:

There gleams the Pict a warrior brave,

And Covenanter plodding grave;

And murderous Pirate, bath’d in gore,

Frowning defiance on the shore;

Where silken-streamer’d barges flock,

Plied dusky chiefs in light carrock;

And where the modern villa glows,

Huts like the Indian wigwam rose;

And lands were bleak where tempest’s scowl’d,

And monsters ‘mid the brushwood prowl’d;

In marshes deep the otter play’d,

Lit by the vapour’s deadly shade;

Till culture on the ploughshare smiled,

And gardens glitter’d in the wild!—

Ere Meikle, with inventive mind,

Abridged the labours of mankind.

Man also changed;—’twas but in name

His selfish passions were the same!

With more of specious shew and art

He bore conceal’d a savage heart!

Was there in Goran’s gloomy reign

A darker page, of redder stain,

Than that which British annals show’d,

When persecution’s torches glow’d,

And men were at their altars shriven,

Because, as conscience bid, they worshipp’d heaven!

XV.

Then Scotia wept, on Bothwell’s plain,

O’er her lone Covenanters slain;

Her zealous clergy chased abroad,

(Deem’d martyrs in the cause of God,)

Before the fierce militia fled,

Denied a home to rest their head;

But as the harmless fawn will bay

When hope has left him for dismay,

So, in affliction’s furnace school’d,

The blood grew warm that might have cool’d,

And firmer for their rights they stood,

And burst their chains though link’d in blood;

Then in the Bass’s dungeons strong

Was pouring Babel’s captive song;

And kiss’d their bonds those sterner few,

Whom threats nor torture could subdue.

Peden, who, with prophetic eye,

Did Bothwell’s fatal fight descry;

Brave Earlston (of Gordon’s line,)

Whose sword sharp-edged for Christ did shine;

Hogg, Rule, and Erskine, men of yore,

Who Scotland’s pulpit honours bore;

And Blackadder, whose pious toil

Resembled his of Patmos isle,

Till, like the dove that found no rest,

He sought in heaven a peaceful nest.

XVI.

Farewell! the pilgrim seeks the shore,

Once more we ply the sounding oar;

And as I leap upon the strand,

By Fancy’s form-creating wand,

Their watch the warders keep,

As by Tantallon’s towers I stand,

That crown the wave-worn steep;

Fair Clara waves her hand on high,

While lordly Marmion gallops by;

Till rising, like a warrior’s ghost,

I see the Douglas’ form in awful shadows lost!

Here, like some veteran seared with scars,

The castle’s front appears sublime,

Which braved the brunt of civil wars,

As now it mocks the siege of time;

For, jealous of proud March’s power,

The Douglas built this mighty tower;

And soon that baron held command

O’er the most powerful of the land;

His country’s friend, his sov’reign’s dread,

From royalty he ask’d no meed,

Save that applause his bosom gave,

Turbulent as the Pentland’s wave!

Now bell’d the cat at Lauder bridge;

Now bearded James on Stirling’s ridge;

With haughty heart, unknown to yield,

Stubborn as that upon his shield;

For he whom thousand hearts obey’d,

Ill brook’d when wavering monarchs sway’d;

But when the sound of Southron’s horn

Among his native valleys ran,

All private feuds were held in scorn,

And mighty Douglas led the van;

As witness Cheviot’s fatal fray,

As witness Flodden’s bloody day;

The Stuart never held command

O’er truer heart and firmer hand.

XVII.

Near to Tantallon is a spring,—

St Baldred’s well

The maidens tell,

Where birds will dip their charmed wing,

And more melodious sing.

As the parch’d Arab sips the brook

Devotedly, a draught I took,

When all was shining as a dream,

And round romantic forms did teem.

Methought I saw a beauteous maid

Steal softly from the greenwood shade,

And, as she knelt her rosary counting,

Thus spake the spirit of the fountain:

Spirit.

Maid, why lov’st thou Baldred’s spring?

Does its sedge-crown’d waters bring

Forgetfulness, like that dull stream

That sooth’d the Grecian’s noonday dream?

Do its fallings, whispering near,

Charm thy love-enchanted ear,

And with the music of its voice

Bid thy parched heart rejoice?

Maid.

Stranger! in that font I trace

Sorrows in my faded face,

Where, within its waters clear,

Brighter shadows did appear,

When like dryad, young and fair,

I lean’d to busk my bridal hair,—

Bridal hair that ne’er was tied;

The morn arrived—the bridegroom died!

Now, I deem some spirit dwells

In that fountain’s crystal wells,

Where the echoes of a voice

Bid me still, rejoice! rejoice!

Since life’s short and stormy day,

Like noiseless waters, steals away,

Till on heaven’s bosom it doth lie,

Mingled with Eternity.

XVIII.

I woke, but, lo! this vestal maid

Had vanish’d to her native shade;

When leaving Baldred’s sacred rill,

And winding round by Hamer’s hill,

Beside her ancient church I stood,

And the blithe priests of Holyrood

Came, marshalling, in merry mood.

But soon they flit, an aerial train,

Like rustling of the wind;

And, though the harp’s lone chords complain;

Deign not to look behind.

I sought St Mary’s chapel fair,—

The holy font was dry!

No priests were there to mutter prayer

For pilgrim passing by;

All, tomb-like, was her silent quire,

As when the ruthless Edward came,

And gave, in retributive ire,

The lady’s white-robed church to flame,

When on these shores he saw his navy driven,

And strove with mortal arm to strike at heaven!

XIX.

To Binning Wood I wander’d on,

Where leafy labyrinths darkly shone;

I walk’d upon enchanted ground,

’Neath boughs that clustering met around,

Where a lone flowery circle spreads

In beauty. Fays their small harps sound

Reclining on their violet-beds,

When here in moonlight hours they meet

Beneath the fox-glove’s purple bell,

To shake their soft elastic feet,

As loves, unearthly deem’d, they tell.

And, O! ’tis sweet among these bowers

The blushing hermit-rose to seek;

For still this lovely queen of flowers

Reminds me of Maria’s cheek;

While sylvan spirits hover bland,

And verdant deck the lady’s shrine

Who bade these canopies expand,

In Gothic-fashion’d wreathes to twine.

XX.

In spiral clouds, through holly’s green,

The meadow-hamlet’s smoke I spy,

As hastening, ere the fall of e’en,

To Preston’s sacred shades I fly;

While playful in my path appears

The house-dog pricking up his ears,

And rosy boys that struggling seek

Who first a parent’s name may speak;

And, as expression warms each face,

Rush fondly to their sire’s embrace.

Short greetings were as shortly made,

When winding by the river’s shade,

Where fertile pastures shine,

I stood by Baldred’s noisy wheel,

Where, serpent-like, the waters steal

Bright, through the groves of Tyne.

I sought in Preston’s holy fane,

But all my search was given in vain

To find his sacred shrine;

Here wakes no midnight anthem’s swell,

No croslet mark remains to tell

Where the saint’s relics lie;

For time, alas! long since has thrown

Oblivion o’er the moulder’d stone,

And veil’d it from the eye!

The moralist may homeward turn,

The futile works of man to mourn;

If mean and lowly be his lot,

The great alike will be forgot!

If earthly glory dims his eyes,

Here let him ponder, and be wise!

END OF ST BALDRED.

NOTES TO SAINT BALDRED.

=Introductory Stanzas.=

1.

Stanza i. page 9.

_Here ocean’s waves usurp the rural scene,

And the blue waters gird the mountain’s zone,

Where spread of yore the verdant blooming plain._

There are some ingenious observations on the sea-coast, in the appendix

to the Agricultural Survey of East Lothian, wherein the writer supposes

that the ancient fortress of Tantallon, which is now nearly insulated,

once stood at a considerable distance from the sea. He imagines that the

perpendicular shore on each side of the castle, which consists for the

most part of soft earth, and upwards of two hundred feet in height,

leads the mind back to the time when this shore ended in a gentle slope,

and extended greatly beyond the Bass.

2.

Stanza v. page 11.

_Where breezes creep

O’er Fidrey’s sacred isle._

As early as the reign of William, a chapel stood on the isle of Fidrey,

near the shore of Elbotle, (now forming part of the parish of Dirleton,)

dedicated to St Nicolas. The ruins still remain.

3.

Stanza v. page 11.

_The sea-calf roll’d by,

Forsook her briny pool, and lick’d the patriarch dry._

_Bede_ relates of St Cuthbert, that when on a visit to the Abbess of

Coldingham, one of the monks having discovered that the saint left the

monastery in the night, had the curiosity to trace his steps, when he

discovered him on the sea-shore, standing up to the neck in water, where

he spent the hours in prayer till the time of the morning devotions.

Having retired from the waves, two sea calves came forth from the sea,

and, approaching the saint, warmed his feet with their breath, and wiped

them dry with their skins, after which, on receiving his benediction,

they retired to the deep.

4.

Stanza viii. page 13.

_He also taught

To rear the rustic dome, which, formed of stone,

Fair architecture to perfection brought._

Fenan, the successor of Aidan at Lindisfarn, built a church in the

Scottish fashion, of beams and planks of oak, covered with reeds, which

in those times was judged fit for the seat of a bishop.—See _Bede_, book

iii. chap. 25. The splendid cathedral of York, which is esteemed the

largest and most magnificent in Europe, owes its origin to a church

built hastily of wood about the time of this poem, and dedicated to St

Peter. These rustic houses of prayer were held in such veneration, that

afterwards, as was the case with York Minster, when churches of stone

began to be built, they commonly comprehended the old fabric within

their walls. From various passages in Bede, it appears that the monks

employed their leisure hours in the cultivation of agriculture and of

the arts. Easterwin, colleague of the abbot of Weremouth, though a man

of noble birth, and who had been the minister of King Egfrid, yet having

abandoned secular affairs, he sought not to be distinguished from the

other brethren, but would fan, grind, milk cows or sheep, guide the

plough, beat out iron, work in the bakehouse, &c., and employ himself in

any business relative to the monastery as an example to others.—See

_Border Hist. Scot._

5.

Stanza ix. page 13.

_And, fair, her house of prayer was seen to rise,

Where the Cistertian sisters loved to dwell,

Beneath the mighty shade of Lothian’s Alpine hill._

The ruins of the Cistertian nunnery of North Berwick stand on an

eminence south-west from the town, and command a delightful view of the

sea, the shores of Fife, the Bass, and an immense conical hill, called

North Berwick Law, which rises at least 800 feet above the level of the

sea. Of this nunnery there are three views in Grose’s Scottish

Antiquities. It was consecrated to the Virgin Mary, and founded by

Malcolm, son of Duncan, Earl of Fife, in 1216. Besides the patronage of

the church of Kilconchar, granted to this place by the Earls of Carrick,

and other advowsons, Dame Isabel Home, daughter to Alexander Home of

Polwart, prioress of this nunnery, gave to her kinsman, Alexander Home,

in feu, the teind sheaves of Largo church in Fife, in 1532; and Dame

Margaret Home, her successor, and daughter to the same family, gave a

tack of the parsonage-teinds of Logie, in the diocese of Dunblane, to

Sir Patrick Home of Polwart and his heirs, in 1555.—See _Spotswood’s

Acct. Religious Houses_. But Sir James Dalrymple states, that the elder

Earl Duncan, who died in 1154, was the founder, whose father gave to the

monastery the lands of Muthritht in Fife, and other lands, which were

confirmed by King William, as also those of Kirkamstown, and of two

hospitals. The church had been originally the cell or kirk of a

religious person, called Campston.

At the Reformation the revenues of the nunnery were converted by

operation of law into a lordship for Sir Alexander Home, a favourite of

James VI. At this epoch the nunnery was inhabited by eleven nuns, who

had each L.20 a year.—See _Caledonia_, vol. ii. p. 506.

A picturesque ruin stands on a sandy eminence, near the harbour of North

Berwick. The adjacent ground seems to have been a burial place, from the

number of human bones scattered around.—_Grose_.

At Elbotle and Golyn there were also convents of Cistertians; but what

may appear remarkable, these cells belonged not to North Berwick, but to

_South_ Berwick.

6.

Stanza xi. page 14.

_Methinks, oft gazing o’er Bodotria’s tide,

King Brude and Baldred sat in cavern’d shade._

_Bodotria Æstuarium_, the mouth of the Frith of Forth.

NOTES TO SAINT BALDRED.

PART I.

1.

Stanza i. page 17.

_While torch-light reddens the lone cave,

And brightens every paler face._

Boece describes the Bass as “ane wounderful crag, risand within the see,

with sa narro and strait hals (passage) that na schip nor bait may

arrive bot allanerlie at ane part of it. This crag is callit the Bas;

unwinnabill be ingine of man. In it ar coves, als proffitable for

defence of men, as they were biggit be crafty industry.—_Bellenden’s

Boece_, vol. 1. cap. xxxvii.—The ruins of the castle, or rather of later

fortifications, still remain.

2.

Stanza iv. page 19.

_White monsters in the Forth were seen

Disporting in the waters green,

With crested head, like horned owl,

O’erspread with film like Carmelite’s cowl._

“Ane multitude of fische was sene in Forth, the tane half of thame above

the watter, na thing different fra the figour of man; callit, be the

pepil, Bassinatis. Thir fische hes blak skinnis hingand on thair bodyis,

with quhilk, sum time, thay covir thair heid and thair cragis, evin to

thair schulderis. Quhen thir fische fletis in our seyis, thay signify

gret infortuniteis to mortal pepill.—_Ibid_, vol. ii. 179.—These

monsters were probably seals, or sea-dogs, which frequent the mouth of

Tyne; but which now come and go without either breeding terror to man or

murrain to cattle.

3.

Stanza iv. page 19.

_And many saw pale Loda’s form

Gleam in his meteor-clad array._

“The spirit of Loda sat, in his cloud, behind the ships of Frothal. He

hung forward with all his blasts, and spread the white-bosomed

sails.”—_Ossian._

Loda is supposed to be the ancient Odin of Scandinavia.

4.

Stanza vii. page 21.

_The Priest of Garmilton

Loud spake, while from his eyes there shone

Radiance, like lightning from a cloud._

The priest of Garmilton, or Garleton, is an imaginary character; but

from the writs of Garmilton it appears, that there was a chapel of St

Mungo existed there in 1457.

1. “Foundation of William Tours and his spouse in honour of the altar of

St Mungo, of an annual of ten merks yearly, out of certain lands in

Haddington, January 3, 1457.

2. “An indenture betwixt Sir James Tours, and Walter Henderson, chaplain

of the chaplainry of his chapel of Garleton, founded of St Mungo, May

26, 1534.

3. “Charter granted by Alexander Tours of Innerleith of the chaplainry

of St Mungo, situate in Garleton-Noble, in favour of Finlay Hunter, of

all and hail, a tenement of land in Haddington, dated last January

14.”—_Heads of the Writs of Garmilton._

Near the chapel was a mineral spring, called, from the virtue of its

waters, the Vertur Well. It was much resorted to by persons afflicted

with scrofulous disorders.

Anciently there were two villages or hamlets at Garleton, called

Garmilton-Noble (from William Noble,) and Garmilton Alexander (from

Alexander II.) or Mid Garleton, now East and West Garleton. In 1507, the

Garletons passed from Lindsay of the Byres to the celebrated Sir David

Lindsay of the Mount, poet, and Lord Lyon King at Arms, during the reign

of James V.; from him it was conveyed to John Tours, next to George,

Earl of Winton; in 1720 to Sir Francis Kinloch, and in 1724 to the Earl

of Wemyss.—The original name is evidently derived from Gar-mull-ton, the

_bare rocky town_, which is applicable to its situation.

There was an old song in praise of Garleton, which Mr Skirving, author

of the fine satirical song on the battle of Prestonpans, and the father

of the celebrated painter of that name, was wont to sing, but I never

heard more than the two first lines, printed in italics; the other lines

I have added, to give some meaning to the verses:

_The bonny parks o’ Garleton,

Their name ye ken, their name ye ken_,

That lie beneath the Hanging Crags,

Where Cogtal’s gentle waters rin.

The bird that soars frae dawning morn

To pensive e’ening’s twilight fa’,

Beholds nae fairer fields than these

On a’ the earth’s terraqueous ba.’

O! meet me on the Lady’s Koowe,

When day glides o’er the Ochils hie;

Then crowns may deck the monarch’s brow,

While Love and Beauty stray wi’ me.

It is more than probable that St Kentigern or Mungo resided in this

neighbourhood, as the chapel of Garleton is the only one which I have

discovered, dedicated to St Mungo in East Lothian; and about a mile and

a half from its site is a place still called _Mungo’s Wells_. I may

conclude in the words of Chalmers, that “at the romantic foot of the

Garleton hills stands the house of Garleton, which shows in its present

ruins its ancient magnificence.”—For a strange story of an apparition,

connected with this decayed mansion, see my notes on witchcraft,

appended to the “LOST DRAVE,” in this volume; and for an account of the

remains of a Pictish town or fort near this place, see notes to the

“VISION OF HUNGUS.”

While on this subject, I may be pardoned for introducing another ballad

to the notice of the reader, of more importance.

David Lindsay, third son of Patrick, fourth Lord Lindsay and Byres, was

killed at the battle of Flodden. Some of his tenants probably

accompanied him to that fatal field, since the old song says,

“For a’ that fell at Flodden field,

“Rouny HOOD of _the Hule_ cam hame.”

It were devoutly to be wished that more of this ballad could be

recovered. _The Hule_ now consists of a few cottages on the farm of

Prora, in the parish of Athelstaneford. The epithet _rouny_ seems here

used as a term of reproach. Old Scottish nicknames commonly terminated

with that syllable; as, _custroun_, a poor pitiful fellow, &c.—See

_Sibbald’s Glossary_.

5.

Stanza viii. page 22.

_I swear by Hadda-Chuan’s stone,

That storms are in the sky!

Yes, by the tempest saint I swear

Of green Iona’s Isle!_

There was a chapel dedicated to St Columba in the isle of Troda, near

the northernmost point of Sky, called Hunish. In Hadda-Chuan also, that

is, _Hadda of the Ocean_, which is about two leagues distant from Hunish

Point, there is another chapel dedicated to the same saint.

“It has an altar in the east end; and there is a blue stone of a round

form on it, which is always moist. It is an ordinary custom, when any of

the fishermen are detained in the isle, by contrary winds, to wash the

blue stone with water all around, expecting thereby to procure a

favourable wind, which the credulous tenant living in the isle, says,

never fails, especially if a stranger wash the stone. The stone is

likewise applied to the sides of people troubled with stitches, and they

say it is effectual for that purpose. And so great is the regard that

they have for this stone, that they swear decisive oaths on it.”—See

_Western Islands_, p. 27, and _Hist. Culdees_, p. 184.

6.

Stanza xi. p. 24.

_Each left the corpse, save that dark man

Cormac, from Aberlady’s shore,

Who, deem’d a cunning artisan,

Had left Kilspindie’s cells at dawn._

It has been conjectured that the Culdees had a cell near Aberlady. There

are still visible the vestiges of a small chapel on the north-west

corner of the church-yard. “Kilspindie, the place of their settlement,

near Aberlady, (observes Chalmers,) is supposed to have derived its name

from the Culdees; _Cil-ys-pen-du_, signifying, in the British speech,

the _cell of the Black Heads_.”

Cormac, as regards the poem, is a fictitious personage; but while St

Columba resided at the court of Brudi, King of the Picts, he met with

the Regulus, or petty prince of the Orkneys, whose protection he

solicited for Cormac, one of his disciples, whom he _foreknew_ was on

his way to the Western Islands.—_Hist. Culd._ p. 179.

I may add, with respect to this monk’s being deemed a _cunning artisan_,

that in a monastery which St Mungo founded in Wales, “there were daily

entertained six hundred three score and three persons, of which number

three hundred were kept at some _manual_ work within the monastery;

other three hundred did labour in the fields, and practise husbandry;

and the rest being appointed for divine service, had the day and night

divided among them, so that there were some always in the church

praising God.”—_Spotswood_, p. 11.

7.

Stanza xiii. page 25.

_That hail’d the monk of Lindisfarn,

In friendship free—in virtue stern._

The introduction of the Bishop of Lindisfarn may in part be considered

an anachronism; as, according to Chalmers, the epoch of this

bishoprick did not exist till 30 years afterwards, when it extended

over the ample range of Lothian, and continued till the decline of the

Northumbrian kingdom. Tyningham belonged to this bishoprick, saith

Hoveden.—_Caledonia_, vol. ii. p. 501. In King Duncan’s charter of

grants to St Cuthbert, (who was successor to Aidan,) the following

four places are mentioned: Tyningham, Aldham, Scuchale (Scoughal) and

Cnolle (Knowes,) with Hetherwick and Brocesmouth.—_Ibid._

8.

Stanza xv. page 27.

_That hill, which in a latter day

By witchcraft near was borne away,

When the Gyre Carling strode the mast._

For an account of the _Gyre Carling_, the mother witch of the Scottish

peasantry, see notes to the “LOST DRAVE” in this volume.

9.

Stanza xv. page 27.

_Unlike St Serf, the church’s keel,

Who with his prayers the dragon slew!_

The legend of St Serf is a specimen of the absurd tales that amused the

ignorant in the early ages.

“In dovyn of devotyoune,

“And prayere he slwe a fell Dragowne.”

_Wyntown’s Cronykil_, book v. chap. 12.

St Mungo was the disciple of St Serf. The long conversation between St

Serf and the devil in a cave at Dysart, is a valuable specimen of the

theology and logic of that age: When Satan found he could not subdue the

Saint,

“He sayd than,

“He kend hym for a wys man;

“For he wan at hym na profyte.”—_Ibid._

Amongst other miracles related of St Serf, when he landed in Fife, on

his way to Culross,

“Thare oure the wattyr he kest his wand,

“That suddanly grewe in a tree,

“And bare of appylys gret plente.”—_Ibid._

The story of his favourite ram must not be passed over: On the thief

being brought into the Saint’s presence,

“Soon he worthyd rede for schame,

“The schepe thar bletyd in hys wame.”

_Wyntown’s Cronykil_, book v. chap. 12.

10.

Stanza xvi. page 27.

_When they beheld, as dropt from heaven,

That lone Aemonian,

The hermit of Inch-Colme’s isle._

The abbey of Inch-Colm was founded by Alexander I. about the year 1123;

but it was dedicated to St Columba, abbot of Iona, and had formerly been

possessed by one of his followers. Veneration for the memory of Columba

is assigned as the reason of the royal foundation. It is said, that the

king, when attempting to cross at the Queen’s Ferry, being overtaken by

a violent storm from the south, urged the mariners to run into the isle

Aemonia, where at that time lived a certain hermit, who, devoted to the

service of St Columba, diligently attended to the duties of religion,

contenting himself with such slender support as the milk of one cow and

the shell fishes on the sea shore afforded. The king and his company

being confined here for three days by the storm, were supported by these

means; and, because from his youth he was attached to St Columba, and

had vowed to him, when in danger of perishing by the storm, that, if he

arrived safely at this island, he would erect some monument worthy of

his memory, he afterwards founded and endowed the abbey here.—Vide

_Regist. Inch-Colm_, 56.—See _Hist. Culd._ p. 187.

11.

Stanza xviii. page 29.

_His zone with iron hoops was braced;

His buckler on his arm was placed:—

Now raising high his sounding lance,

He bade the trembling crowds advance._

“The Pict (says Herodian) has generally no use in apparel, howbeit the

nobler sort of them do wrap their heads and wombs “in hoops of iron,

esteeming this kind of attire, in such as wear the same, to be a token

of wealth and riches. Besides shaving their nether lip, they painted

over their bodies with the image of all kinds of beasts. They esteemed

it a great glory to have these paintings seen, instead of other armour,

with a short lance and narrow target or buckler. Their swords were tied

to their naked sides with a thong; and as for jack, shirt of mail or

helmet, they made no regard of them, because they would trouble them in

swimming, or when compelled to wade.”—_Holinshed’s Chron._ The end of

the Pictish lance contained a hollow bullet of brass, filled with small

pieces of iron, which made a great noise when shaken.

12.

Stanza xxv. page 34.

_To sail on heaven’s transparent streams

With Jhules, the angels of the air._

Jhules, a particular species of genii, which the northern nations

worship on certain festivals: they are supposed to inhabit the air, and

to have great power over human actions, yet are without form or

substance. As the Picts are considered to have been a colony of

Scandinavians, or more northern nations, it seems not out of place to

introduce the objects of Teutonic superstition.

13.

Stanza xxvi. page 35.

_Upon his right, with martial brow,

Appeared the young Prince Derili._

A clerical friend of mine is of opinion, that we may trace the etymology

of Dirleton from _Derili_ king of the Picts. If so, it establishes this

beautiful domain as a royal residence of great antiquity. As the

principal seat of the Pictish kings was situated on the Tay, on the

opposite coast, its proximity to the shores of Fife might render it a

desirable residence for a young prince, when it was more safe and

expeditious to travel by sea than over a barbarous country.

Derili was the son of Brudeus, the patron of Kentigern, who was the

instructor of Baldred. In the year 700, Brude V., the son of Derili,

bestowed the island of Lochleven on St Serf and the Culdees residing

there.—See _Hist. Culdees_, p. 131. According to Winton, there was

another of this sirname, called Nectan Derly, who reigned in 716:

“Sevyn hundyr wynter and sextene,

Quhen lychtare wes the Virgyne clene,

Pape of Rome than Gregore

The secund, quham of yhe herd before,

And Anastas than Empryowre,

The fyrst yhere of hys honowre,

Nectan DERLY wes than regnand

Owre the Peychtis in Scotland.”

_Wyntown’s Cronykil_, vol i. book v.

14.

Stanza xxvi. page 36.

_St Conwal, on his left, was led

By Asaph, soon to suffering bred._

Conwal and Asaph were both disciples of St Mungo.—_Keith’s Cat._ p. 232.

The latter, like Baldred, was bishop and confessor, a title only given

to those who, in spite of persecution, had adhered to the faith. Those

who may be credulous of the self-inflicted mortifications I have

ascribed to these early saints, may consult Swift’s Jocelin’s Life of St

Patrick, p. 244. Their master, St Mungo, after he came to the years of

understanding, never tasted flesh nor drank wine, but slept on the cold

ground, with a stone for his pillow.—See _Spotswood_, p. 11.

15.

Stanza xxvii. page 38.

_Then first by Aldham’s holy shade

The solemn pageant paused the while._

Aldham church was situated on the sea-cliff west from the village. Its

ruins were visible in 1770, but have since been removed to make room for

agricultural improvements. This church was said to be founded by

Baldred. At Scoughall, a short distance eastward from Aldham, were also

the remains of a chapel.

16.

Stanza xxxiii. page 42.

_Eastward of Binning’s beauteous wood,

Stood Baldred’s mossy cell._

The church of Tyningham was founded by St Baldred in the sixth century.

This chapel had the privilege of sanctuary; for Malcolm IV. granted to

the monks of Kelso the church of Inverlethan, with the same privileges

of that kind as Tyningham and Stowe enjoyed, both of which belonged to

the see of St Andrews.—_Chalmers’ Cal._ vol. ii. p. 545.

The ruins of the church, which still remain, will be noticed in the

subsequent pages.

17.

Stanza xxxiv. page 44.

_Then quiver’d, as with earthquake’s shock,

St Baldred’s cradle in the rock,

And Whitberry’s rugged point was broke;

And, lo! (as old traditions say)

That boat of stone in Aldham’s bay,

Yclept the Saint’s, was seen to sail!_

At Whitberry point, near the mouth of the Tyne, a deep fissure formed

between two rocks, is called St Baldred’s Cradle, which tradition says

elegantly, is “rocked by the winds and the waves.” A small rock at the

mouth of Aldham bay is called Baudron’s (Baldred’s) Boat. See

Introduction to the poem, p. 5.

18.

Stanza xxxvi. page 47.

_And as they pass near ancient Cnolle,

Fair Preston’s bell begins to toll._

Cnolle (Knowes) is one of the places mentioned in the charter of King

Duncan to St Cuthbert. As a living proof that it stands on holy ground,

a field adjoining to the present farm house is called the _Bishop’s

Garden_. Some years ago, the workmen of Mr Hunter, while giving a deep

furrow to a field south from the house, came upon the remains of an

ancient cemetery. It contained, in coffins, formed of stone flags, a

number of human skeletons, placed in regular rows, with their feet to

the east. From the ground occupied, it was calculated that six or seven

hundred bodies may have been thus interred. As the teeth of those

examined were entire, and the skeletons measured from four feet four to

more than six feet, it was reasonably conjectured that they were the

victims of a battle. This conclusion is strengthened from the

circumstance, that, in a park, about half a mile distant, on the farm of

Kirkland-hill, is one of those rudely sculptured perpendicular stones,

which are commonly supposed to mark the scene of contention of an early

period. A similar rude monument stands on the north side of

Pencraik-hill; as also several in Athelstaneford parish, which I shall

have occasion to notice in my notes to the “VISION OF HUNGUS.”

19.

Stanza xxxvii. page 47.

_They have made St Baldred’s grave

Under Preston’s sculptured nave—

They have borne the saint’s last pall,

And placed his statue in the wall._

The church of Prestonkirk is supposed to have been originally built for

St Baldred; part of the ruins still remain contiguous to the modern

fabric, which was built in 1770. The late Sir George Buchan Hepburn

observes, in a letter to the author of Caledonia, that “Baldred’s statue

lay long in the church-yard; and he had intended to have got it built

into the church-wall; but, during his absence, an irreverent mason

ignorantly broke it in pieces.”—_Caledonia_, vol. ii. p. 541.

An old intelligent carpenter told me, that this statue was similar to

the one now lying in Tyningham church. It was called St Baudron’s; but

was supposed to be the figure of some one who had left large endowments

for ecclesiastical purposes.

NOTES TO SAINT BALDRED.

PART II.

1.

Stanza iii. page 55.

_Where, shining through the flowery glade,

The mouth of Tyne translucent streams,

Within a liliac covert’s shade

St Baldred’s shrine romantic gleams._

The church, and the old village of Tyningham stood on the west side of

the Tyne, about half a mile below the site of the present village. The

latter terminated on the east by the side of an elm tree, and was

removed for domestic improvements. The ruins of the church still remain,

and consist of two beautiful Saxon arches, which are tastefully shaded

with shrubbery, and have a picturesque appearance. This spot is now the

cemetery of the noble family of the domain. Within the interior of the

church there is a small niche, where three shields are sculptured _in

relievo_. Below its arch a detached figure reclines, habited in a close

gown, with hands claspt in the attitude of prayer. At the feet of this

figure lies the symbolical lamb, originally holding the cross, which is

broken away. The old carpenter formerly mentioned, told me that this

statue, like that of Prestonkirk, was called St Baudrons. This, however,

is evidently the statue of a lady.

2.

Stanza iii. page 55.

_But, Time, alas! with viewless hand,

Completes the labours of the Dane,

And triumphs o’er the brand._

Anlaf, the Dane, spoiled the church, and burnt the village of Tyningham,

in 941, which, Chalmers observes, is a very early notice of the

kirk-town of this place.

“The fierce Dane

Upon the eastern coast of Lothian landed,

Near to that place where the sea-rock immense,

Amazing Bass, looks o’er a fertile land.”—_Home’s Douglas._

While the workmen of the Earl of Haddington were, a few years ago,

clearing the ruins of the church, they dug a considerable way in search

of relics. About five feet below the niche formerly mentioned something

like burnt ashes were turned up, but nothing further discovered. If the

relics of the saint were, however, spared by the fiery Dane, while in

search of plunder, it is not likely they escaped the mania of the early

centuries for this precious merchandise, when the tooths, legs, and arms

of the saints were enchased in silver, and bartered at a high rate.

3.

Stanza viii. page 58.

_Far, in the blue haze, dimly seen,

I view the beacon-beaming isle._

The Isle of May, like the Bass, forms a conspicuous object in the Frith

of Forth. David I. founded a monastery on the island, for the monks of

Reading, in Yorkshire, to whom it originally belonged, and dedicated his

benefaction to all the saints. It was afterwards consecrated to St

Adrian, who, along with Glodian, Gaius, (or, as others write, Monanus,)

archdeacon of St Andrews, and Bishop Stolbrand, were martyred here by

the Danes. It was afterwards purchased by William Lamberton, bishop of

St Andrews, from the Abbot of Reading; who, notwithstanding the

complaints of King Edward, bestowed it upon the canons regular of his

cathedral.—See _Holinshed_. Like Whitekirk, it was of old much

frequented by barren women on pilgrimage.

This island was next granted in feu by Charles I. to Cunningham of

Burns, for the purpose of erecting a lighthouse for the benefit of

mariners. A tower of forty feet was built for that purpose. The first

builder was cast away, in a tempest raised by witchcraft, while

returning from thence to his house in Fife, for which some unfortunate

old women were executed.—See _Keith’s Cat._ p. 238, and _Grose’s Scot.

Ant._ vol. i. p. 81.

A lighthouse, upon an improved plan, with revolving burners, has

recently been erected.

4.

Stanza x. page 60.

_Proud Bass! amidst the crystal sea,

Thou’rt like a fairy-haunted isle._

This picturesque rock rises with a bold and rugged sweep, at least four

hundred feet above the surface of the waters, and in the month of July

looks like an enchanted island, where web-footed birds come to hold a

jubilee. It is situated in the mouth of the Forth, about two miles from

the shore, and is inaccessible except by a narrow passage in the west.

The base of the rock is computed to be an English mile in circumference.

From the depth of the water, extending from thirty to forty fathoms, its

entire height may be estimated at six hundred feet. A cavern runs

through the rock from east to west, which may be traversed at ebb-tide.

It is dark in the centre, where there is a deep pool. While sailing on

the south side of the rock, opposite the opening of this cave, it was

truly delightful to contemplate its sublime scenery. The rock here

appeared piled in tremendous masses, frowning over our heads, and

scattered the restless waves as they rose against its rugged summits or

washed its everlasting foundations, while myriads of sea birds sat

secure and undisturbed on their lofty perches.

Besides the solan geese, which are its principal inhabitants, the Bass

contains pasture for at least twenty sheep, celebrated it is said in the

annals of gluttony; it has also a small warren of rabbits.

The best season for visiting the Bass is during the incubation of the

geese, in the months of June and July. The most propitious time is

shortly after sunrise, when the waves are calm, and the greatest variety

of birds to be seen. An easterly breeze must be avoided, otherwise the

visitor may expect a good ducking if he sails round the north side of

the rock.

5.

Stanza x. page 60.

_Alas! we may not mark the spot

Where stood the hermit’s holy cell;

Its sacred precincts are forgot._

About half way up the rock, a little below the old garden, is the

remains of a chapel pretty entire, where the ammunition of the garrison

was kept when the island was used as a state-prison for the Covenanters.

The niches for the holy fonts show that it must have been built prior to

the reformation of the church.

The Bass pays annually twelve geese to the church of North Berwick as

part of the minister’s stipend.

6.

Stanza xii. page 61.

_Here oft the boatman rests his oar,

While o’er the rock the fowler hung,

Like the bold youth of Kilda’s shore,

Descends to seek the solan’s young._

The solan are commonly taken in the month of August. This is effected by

hoisting the fowler over inaccessible places of the rock, by a rope

fastened to a girdle. The young birds are killed by striking them on the

head, while the boatmen below are ready to receive them. This perilous

employment is often attended with danger from the falling of loose

stones. Some years ago one of the fowlers would have been buried under a

ton-weight of fragments, had he not had the presence of mind to swing

himself under a jutting crag, where he remained in safety till the mass

rolled over his head.

7.

Stanza xii. page 62.

_That bird, which on gigantic wing,

Like cormorant, delights to soar._

The solan resembles the cormorant and pelican, both in its manner of

fishing, by diving from a great height, and the method of securing its

prey in a dilatable pouch, of sufficient size to contain four or five

herrings. The gannet or solan goose (the _Pelecanus Bassanus_ of

Linnæus) was supposed to breed no where in Europe save on the Bass, and

the isle of Ailsa in the frith of Clyde; but they are also found on the

Stark of Suliskerry, a holm or uninhabited island, a little to the

south-west of the Orkney isles, and at St Kilda in the Hebrides.

8.

Stanza xii. page 62.

_Wo to the silvery shoals that lie

’Neath the bright lustre of her eye._

The gannet also resembles the cormorant in its quickness of sight. It

has a transparent membrane under the eyelid, with which it covers the

whole eye at pleasure, without obscuring the sight, which seems a

necessary provision for so weighty a creature, whose method of seizing

its prey is by darting down headlong from a height of at least a hundred

feet into the water. “They have a crane’s neck, and a strong sharp bill,

about the length of one’s middle finger, with which they strike through

their prey with such violence, that it often sticks in a board, baited

with herring, so as they cannot pull it out again, and are catched by

the inhabitants.”—_Journey through Scot._ 1723. Mr Pennant relates a

similar story of one of these birds, which, when flying over Penzance,

in Cornwall, saw some pilchards lying on a fir plank, upon which,

darting down for the purpose of seizing them, it struck its bill through

an inch and quarter plank, and was killed on the spot.

_Holinshed_ observes, “Certes, there is nothing in this rock that is not

full of admiration and wonder: therein is also great store of solan

geese, (not unlike to those which Pliny calleth water eagles, or, as we

say, sea herons,) and no where else but in Ailsa and this rock. At their

first coming, they gather such great plenty of sticks and boughs

together for the building of their nests, that the same do satisfy the

keeper of the castle for the yearly maintenance of his fuel. Within the

bowels of these geese there is a kind of grease to be had of singular

force in medicine, and flaying likewise the skin from their bodies with

the fat, they make an oil very profitable for the gout, and many other

diseases in the haunches and groins of mankind. In this crag more there

growth a herb very pleasant and delicious for sallads, but if it be

taken up and planted elsewhere, it either groweth not, or utterly loses

its virtues.

“There was some time a stone found here, much like to a water sponge or

pumice, hollow on the one side, and of such a nature, that if any salt

water had been poured thereunto, and suffered to run through, it would

forthwith lose the natural saltness, and become very fresh and pleasant

unto the mouth and taste. We hear in these days that this stone is to be

seen in Fast Castle, whither it was brought after it had passed many

hands for the trial of this matter.”—See _Holinshed’s Chron._ vol. i.

introd.

9.

Stanza xii. page 62.

_The puffin, with her crimson bill,

Deem’d sacred by the lone Kurile._

This remarkable bird is also a native of the Bass, and commonly goes by

the name of the _Tommy Nora_. It is found, however, in greater plenty on

the isle of Craig Leith, near North Berwick, where it takes up its abode

in the rabbit burrows. When sailing round the rock on the summer

evenings, the bird is heard to make a mournful noise, like a person

crying _Ah! ha!_ Its voice has been compared to a dumb person attempting

to speak, or to the hum of a large spinning-wheel. This humming sound

had a very pleasant effect, when, from the top of the Bass, we looked

down on the myriads below, and heard it mingled with the chattering of

the guillimot or skout, and the screaming of the sea-gulls.

The puffin is most celebrated for its bill, which is large and flat,

with its edge upwards, partly ash-coloured and partly red, of a

triangular shape, not unlike the coulter of a plough, hence the bird

gets the name of _Coulterneb_. The Kamtschadales and Kuriles decorate

their necks with the bill, which the priest puts on with an appropriate

ceremony. While in possession of this amulet, they consider good fortune

will attend them.

10.

Stanza xiii. page 62.

_This rock! where Pictish chiefs held sway,

Was patriot’s boast of latter day._

The Bass was an ancient possession of the family of Lauder, who sprung

originally from Lauder of that ilk, or Lauder Tower.—_Nisbet’s

Heraldry_, vol. i. p. 344. According to Henry the Minstrel, Robert

Lauder accompanied Wallace in many of his exploits. This family

continued in a lineal descent till the reign of Charles I., when it

merged into that of Lauder of Beilmouth. In the aisle of the lairds of

the Bass, in the old church of North Berwick, a tombstone bears the

following inscription, in Latin Saxon characters:—“_Here lies the good

Robert Lauder, the great laird of Congalton and Bass, who died May

1311._”

11.

Stanza xiii. page 63.

_As erst in treason’s gloomy hour,

On faction’s billows wildly driven,

My holde did shelter Scotia’s flower,

When from its parent stem ’twas riven._

The Bass sheltered James, the infant heir of Robert III., in 1405, when

it was judged expedient to send the young prince to France, to secure

him against the dark intentions of the Duke of Albany. Henry Sinclair,

Earl of Orkney, was appointed chief attendant in this voyage, and a ship

was ordered to the isle of Bass to receive the young prince; but they

had only proceeded to Flamborough-head, when they were captured by the

English. Nineteen years elapsed before James saw the end of his

captivity. While confined in Windsor Castle he wrote his poem of the

_King’s Quair_.

The Bass was the last place that held out for James VII. in Great

Britain. It was defended by a gallant officer, David, third son of James

Blair of Ardblair, who afterwards went to France to his royal master,

where he died.—See _Douglas’ Baronage_, p. 191. After the Revolution a

desperate race of pirates got possession of it, who had a large boat,

which they hoisted down at pleasure, and committed several piracies.

Their boat being at length seized or lost, and not receiving their

accustomed supply of provisions from France, they were compelled to

surrender.

12.

Stanza xv. page 65.

_Then in the Bass’s dungeons strong

Was pouring Babel’s captive song._

The Bass was purchased by the Crown from Sir Alexander Ramsay, soon

after the Restoration, 1671, for £4000 Sterling, and converted into a

state-prison during the reign of Charles II. and his brother James,

where the western Covenanters, called Cameronians, were confined for

being in arms against the king.—_Trans. Scot. Ant._—It now belongs to

Sir H. D. Hamilton, Bart.

Amidst a multitude of prisoners the most remarkable were, 1. Alexander

Peden, of prophetic memory. While Peden was prisoner in the Bass, “one

sabbath morning, being about the public worship of God, a young girl,

about the age of fourteen years, came to the chamber-door mocking with

loud laughter; he said, Poor thing, thou laughest and mockest at the

worship of God, but ere long God shall write such a sudden and

surprising judgment on thee, that shall stay this laughing, &c. Very

shortly after that, as she was walking on the rock, a blast of wind

swept her off to the sea, where she was lost.”

Another day, while Peden was walking on the rock, some soldiers passing

by, cried, “The devil take him.” He said, “Fy, fy! poor man, thou

knowest not what thou art saying; but thou shalt repent that. At which

the soldier stood astonished, and went to the guard distracted, crying

aloud for Mr Peden, saying, The devil would immediately come and take

him away. Mr Peden came, and spoke to and prayed for the soldier, and

next morning came to him again, and found him in his right mind, under

deep convictions of great guilt. The guard being to change, they

commanded him to his arms, but he refused; and said, He would lift no

arms against Jesus Christ, his cause, and his people; I have done that

too long. The governor threatened him with death to-morrow by ten

o’clock. He confidently said, three times, ‘That though he should tear

him in pieces, he should never lift arms that way.’ About three days

after, the governor put him forth of the garrison, setting him ashore,

and he, having a wife and children, took a house in East Lothian, and

became a singular Christian.”—See _Biog. Scoticana._

2. Thomas Hogg, minister of Kiltern.—Having contracted a severe

dysentery, he petitioned the council for liberation, which Sharpe

opposed, declaring that the prisoner was in a capacity to do more hurt

in his elbow-chair, than twenty others travelling through the country;

and if the justice of God was pursuing him, the clemency of government

should not prevent it. Hogg was carried to a low, nasty dungeon, and in

a short time recovered. When speaking of the arch-prelate afterwards, he

jocularly said, “Commend him to me for a good physician.”—See _Wodrow_,

vol. ii. and _Hogg’s Mem._ in _Scots Worthies_.

3. Gilbert Rule, minister at Alnwick. After the Revolution he became

Principal of the University of Edinburgh, and colleague of Dr G.

Campbell, professor of divinity. Dr Rule sat late at his studies, and

Professor Campbell rose early, so that the candle of the one was often

lighted before the other had finished his lucubrations. Their lodgings

being at a little distance with opposite windows, the one went by the

name of the Evening Star, and the other of the Morning Star.—_Crichton’s

Mem. Blackadder_.

4. Alexander Gordon of Earlston, who was incarcerated in 1683. His

father was slain when on his way to join the Covenanters at the battle

of Bothwell Bridge. He is supposed to be the hero of the ballad written

in commemoration of that fray.—See _Minstrelsy Scot. Border_, vol. ii.

p. 89.

So Earlstoun rose in the morning,

An’ mounted by the break o’ day;

An’ he has join’d our Scottish lads,

As they were marching out the way.

“Now, fareweel father, and fareweel mother,

“An’ fare ye weel my sisters three;

“An’ fare ye weel my Earlstoun,

“For thee again I’ll never see!”

* * * * *

Then he set up the flag o’ red,

A’ set about wi’ bonny blue.[3]

After the battle, Earlston narrowly escaped being taken by the ingenuity

of one of his tenants, who, knowing him when he was pursued through

Hamilton, made him dismount, and having hid his horse’s furniture in a

dunghill, dressed him in female attire, and set him to rock the cradle.

On the 22d August, 1684, he was removed from the Bass and ordered for

execution; but through the intercession of his friend the Duke of

Gordon, his life was spared. He was thrown into Blackness Castle, where

he remained till the Revolution.—See _Scots Worthies_, _Fountainhall_,

_Minstrelsy_, _&c_.

And, lastly, John Blackadder, a lineal descendant of the house of

Tulliallan, who died in 1685, after five years’ confinement. He was

buried in North Berwick church-yard, where a handsome tombstone, with a

suitable epitaph, has been erected to his memory. His Memoirs, by

Crichton, have lately been published.

13.

Stanza xvi. page 66.

_As by Tantallon’s towers I stand,

That crown the wave-worn steep._

Tantallon castle stands about two miles and a half east from North

Berwick, on a high rock, overlooking the sea, which surrounds it on

three sides. The greater part of the building remains in a ruinous

state. The only approach is from the west, which was defended by

batteries. It is said to have been built by the Douglases, when the

overgrown power of the earls of Dunbar had awakened their jealousy.

The following curious etymology of the place is noticed in _Blaeu’s

Atlas_, vol. i. p. 41. Two superintendents of the building, called

_Thomas_ and _Allan_, got permission from the lord of the castle to

inscribe their names on a prominent part of the walls in Latin, which

stood _Tom et Allan_: hence the country people called it the castle of

_Tam ’t Allan_.

In 1528 this castle was held for some time against James V. The

particulars of the siege may be found in Lindsay of Pitscottie’s

Chronicle of Scotland.

John Rolland, author of a pedantic poem called the Seven Sages, resided

here about 1544 or 1547. The time and place of composition are thus

mentioned in the Epilogue:—

“So in seven weeks this quair was clene compleit,

Out of plaine prose, now keiping meters feit:

Within the fort and towre of _Tamtalloun_,

When the English fleat besyde Inchkeith did sleit,

Upon the sea in that great burning heate.

Both Scottis and Inglisch of Leith lay at the toun,

With scharp assiege, and garneist garisoun,

On ather sort quhair sundrie lost the sweit,

That same tyme I maid this translatioun.”

_Sibbald’s Chron._ vol. iii. p. 287.

During the protectorate of Cromwell, General Monk was detached with

three regiments of horse and foot to reduce Tantallon. As the garrison

held out, he caused the mortar-pieces to play for forty-eight hours; but

these did little execution, till six battering guns being planted, they

were so well managed, that the governor was compelled to submit. It was

on the high ground, south from St Baldred’s well, where it is said the

artillery was planted.

The following letter of General Monk is preserved in the burgh archives

of North Berwick, which, on account of the singularity of its style, is

worthy of being transcribed:—

_“For my very loving friends the Magistrates of the Burgh of

North Berwick._

“GENTLEMEN,—Having a call from God and his people to march into England

to assert and maintain the liberty and being of Parliament, our antient

constitution, and therein the freedom and rights of the people of these

three Nations from Arbitrary and Tyrannical usurpations uppon their

considering persons and Estates, and for a Godly ministry, I do

therefore expect from you, the Magistrates of the Burgh of North

Berwick, That you do preserve the peace of Comonweal in y^r Burgh, and I

hereby authorize you to Suppress all Tumults, stirring and unlawful

assemblies, and that you hold no correspondency with any of Charles

Stewart’s party, or his Adherents, but apprehend any such as shall make

any disturbance, and send them to the next Garrison, and do further

desire you to assert, countenance, and encourage the Godly ministry, and

all that truely fear God in the Land, and that you continue faithful to

owne and assert the interest of the Parliamentary Government in y^r

several places and stations. I hope my absence will be very short. But I

do assure you that I shall procure from the Parliament whatever may be

for the good Government and relief of this Nation, and doubt not but to

obtain abatements in your Assess and other public burthens, according to

the proportion of England; and what further services I may be able I

shall not be wanting in, what may promote the happiness and peace of

this afflicted people. I shall not trouble you further but beg y^r

prayers, and desire you to assure y^rselves that I am

Your faithful Friend,

And humble Servant,

GEORGE MONCK.”

_Edinburgh, 15th November, 1659._

“I desire that what is behind of the four months of the twelve months

Assess may be in aread in sse against it be called for by the twelfth of

December next.

I desire you to send me word to Berwick under your hands, how far you

will comply with my desires.”

14.

Stanza xvii. page 67.

_Near to Tantallon is a spring,

St Baldred’s well

The maidens tell._

About half a mile south west from Tantallon, a fountain well bears the

name of the Saint.

15.

Stanza xviii. page 69.

_And winding round by Hamer’s hill,

Beside her ancient church I stood,

And the blithe priests of Holyrood

Came, marshalling, in merry mood._

The parish of Whitekirk was anciently called Hamer, which in Saxon

signifies the greater Ham; and may have obtained this appellation in

contradistinction to Aldham. The church and manor of Hamer were granted

during the twelfth century to the Monks of Holyrood-house. This Church

was dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and from the whiteness of its

appearance was called Whitekirk. During the seventeenth century, the

parish was augmented by the annexation of Aldham; and in 1761 it was

farther augmented by the annexation of the adjoining parish of

Tyningham.—_Chalmers’ Cal._ vol. ii. p. 547.

Hither many pilgrimages were made. It was under pretence of a pious

expedition to Whitekirk, in order to perform a vow which she had made

for the safety of her son, that the Queen-mother cozened Crichton, the

Chancellor, and carried off James II. in a chest to Stirling.—_Hist.

Culdees_, p. 188. Tradition says, that Whitekirk was of old a celebrated

place for the fattening of barren wives, who generally returned home (in

one sense,) “as women wish to be who love their lords.” Immediately

behind the church is a large house, now converted into a granary, where

the unfortunate Queen Mary is said to have passed two nights.

On the hill above Whitekirk, a cairn of stones marks the grave of two

persons who were slain at a conventicle, by a party from the Bass. This

was probably the meeting held here in May 1678, which was dispersed by

Charles Maitland, deputy-governor, when James Learmont and his brother,

with one Temple, (from Dunbar,) were pannelled, 11th September 1678, for

the murder of John Hay, who came with the King’s forces.

16.

Stanza xix. page 70.

_While sylvan spirits hover bland,

And verdant deck the lady’s shrine,

Who bade these canopies expand,

In Gothic-fashion’d wreathes to twine._

To the sylvan taste of Helen, sixth Countess of Haddington, East Lothian

is indebted for some of the finest plantations in Scotland. The

horticulturist may consult “Treatise on the manner of raising Forest

Trees,” Edin. 1761, or Douglas’ Peerage, vol. i. p. 683, for an

interesting letter, dated Tyningham, Dec. 22, 1733, from Thomas, sixth

Earl of Haddington, to his grandson, giving a history of the progress of

these plantations, which arose under the cultivated taste of his lady.

This excellent person was only daughter to John Hope of Hopetoun, and

sister to Charles, first Earl of Hopetoun. She died at Edinburgh in

1768, in her 91st year.

THE

SIEGE OF BERWICK;

OR, THE

MURDERED HOSTAGE.

=A Tragedy.=

IN FIVE ACTS.

PREFACE.

The dramatic sketch of THE SIEGE OF BERWICK, is founded on a disputed

passage of Scottish history, respecting the barbarous policy of Edward

III. in putting a hostage to death. The silence of the English

historians has been advanced as an argument against a deed, which was

calculated to stain the chaplet of their favourite hero; a silence which

must have arisen from obvious motives, and cannot be brought to bear

against the testimony of Fordun and Winton, who lived at a period near

enough to the time of action to have ascertained its truth.

Lord Hailes took considerable trouble to clear up the mystery that hung

over this transaction; and the following extract, which he found in the

_Scala Chronica_, besides bringing several curious circumstances to

light, seems to establish the fact.

“The besieged entered into a treaty with the besiegers, and agreed to

surrender the town, unless succoured before a certain day, and to that

effect they gave hostages. Before the day thus limited, the whole power

of Scotland, in astonishing numbers, crossed the river of Tweed one

morning at day-break, at the Yareford, and shewed themselves before

Berwick, on the south side of the river, towards England, in full view

of the King and his army. They conveyed some men and provisions into the

town, and remained on their ground all the day and the night following;

and next day before noon, they removed into the territories of the King

in Northumberland, burning and ravaging the country.

“The King’s counsellors required the town to be given up, as the term

stipulated for their being succoured had elapsed. The besieged made

answer, that they had received succours both of men and of provisions;

and they shewed that there were new governors in the town, and also

knights, who had been sent from their army. SIR WILLIAM KEITH was one,

and there were others besides. It was the opinion of the English council

that the Scots had forfeited their hostages, and therefore they caused

the _son_ of SIR ALEXANDER SETON, governor of the town, to be hanged.”

“The narrative of _Scala Chronica_ (observes his Lordship) appears in

general to be authentic. From it we discover the solution of that

difficulty in the accounts given by the Scottish historians, which

hitherto has been inexplicable; namely, how Sir Alexander Seton could

have been governor of the town of Berwick in July 1333, while it

appeared from record, that at that very time Sir William Keith was

governor.

“That parties contracting may agree to give some of their own number as

hostages, to be put to death if the treaty is violated on their part,

appears to be a proposition of more difficulty than is generally

apprehended; but, that they may agree to give their children as hostages

under such condition, is repugnant to every notion of morality; and

therefore I neither pretend to justify Sir Alexander Seton for exposing

his child to death, nor Edward III. for killing him.”—LORD HAILES’

_Annals Scot._ vol. ii. p. 384. 8vo edit.

While this tragedy was enacting, Seton felt all the compunctions natural

to a father placed in such a horrible situation, where his duty to

himself and to his country were both at stake; and, but for the heroic

speech and conduct of his wife, whom Bellenden calls “a wise woman,

above the spirit of man!” he would have surrendered the place. This lady

acted quite in the spirit of a Spartan mother; but indeed this was the

age of heroic ladies. Besides Christian Bruce, the defender of

Kildrummy, and Agnes Randolph, the protector of Dunbar; Philippa, Queen

of England, the Countess of Salisbury, and the Countess of Montfort,

were all distinguished by those warlike exertions, which, we opine,

might have been happily transferred from themselves to the rougher sex.

The mistake into which some historians have fallen in sacrificing two of

the sons of Sir Alexander Seton, may have arisen from the circumstance

of one of them being killed in an attack on the English shipping:

Williame of Seytown fawcht sa fast

Amang the schyppys, qwhill at the last

Hys fadyre, than cheftane of the towne,

Into the sea there saw hym drown.

_Wyntown’s Cronykil_, book viii. chap, xxvii.

Tradition, which delights to magnify objects, points to “two human

sculls in the poor-house of Tweedmouth, which the oldest inhabitants of

the village affirm to have been handed down from generation to

generation, as the sculls of Sir Alexander Seton’s sons.”—See _Fuller’s

Hist. Berwick_, Edin. 1799.

The eminence, where the execution took place, is situated on the south

side of the river, about a hundred yards distant from a fishing water,

formerly called the Pool, but since that event termed _Hang-a-dyke

Nook_.

THE

SIEGE OF BERWICK;

OR, THE

MURDERED HOSTAGE.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

=Scottish.=

PATRICK DUNBAR, EARL OF MARCH, _Governor of Berwick Castle_.

SIR WILLIAM KEITH, _Governor of the Town_.

SIR ALEXANDER SETON, _Deputy-Governor_.

MASTER THOMAS SETON, _one of the Hostages_.

SIR ALEXANDER RAMSAY.

WILLIAM DE PRENDERGEST.

THE MAYOR OF BERWICK.

FRIAR ADAM.

TURNBULL, _a Champion_.

GOLDING, } _Soldiers of the Garrison_.

AUBERY, }

ALAN, _and other Hostages_.

AMBROSE CARMICHAEL, _Town Fiddler, &c. &c._

OFFICERS AND SERGEANTS-AT-MACE, FRIARS, FLEMINGS, OLD MAN, MESSENGERS,

&c.

LADY CHRISTIAN SETON.

ANNA, _her Maid_.

THE GUDEWIFE OF AULD CAMBUS.

MAGGY CARMICHAEL, _the Fiddler’s Wife_.

=English.=

EDWARD III., _King of England_.

EDWARD BALIOL.

THE ARCHBISHOP OF DURHAM.

THE EARL OF ARUNDEL.

LORD WILLIAM MONTAGUE.

LORD HENRY PERCY.

LORD D’ARCY.

JOHN OF HAINAULT.

SIR ROBERT BENHALE.

THOMAS ROKESBY, _Esquire_.

IRISH TROOPERS.

HERALDS, OFFICERS, ARCHERS, EXECUTIONER, GUARDS, &c.

SCENE—_Berwick, the English Camp at Tweedmouth, and the Lands adjacent._

THE SIEGE OF BERWICK.

ACT I.

SCENE I.

_The Council Chamber in Berwick Castle._

[_Flourish of drums and trumpets, and shouts heard without._

_Enter_ LORD DUNBAR, SIR WILLIAM KEITH, _and_ SIR ALEXANDER SETON,

_with attendants._

SETON.

The assault continues, and the gallant Ramsay

Fills up each deadly gap with volunteers,

Mocking all masonry.

KEITH.

Ne’er doth battle shew

A fiercer front, than when her gallant yeomen

Marshal in proud array to meet th’ invader,

And die or conquer for their church and homes,

Their wives, their children, and their loved firesides.

DUNBAR.

Well said! and, with the purest hospitality

To give the audacious foe an earthly bed

Cover’d with crimson drapery. What now, sir?

_Enter_ LIEUTENANT.

LIEUTENANT.

My lords, the Mayor doth crave an audience.

DUNBAR.

Usher him in. He is an upright man,

A good, devout, and worthy citizen:

A person fitted for important matters;

But rather kind of heart for scenes like these.

_Enter the_ MAYOR OF BERWICK, _with_ AMBROSE CARMICHAEL, _his body

servant, [whom the Officer in waiting interrupts,] accompanied also

by four Sergeants-at-Mace._

OFFICER.

Back, fellow! How dare you intrude here?

AMBROSE.

Ambrose Carmichael, town-musician, town-crier, and grave-digger, at your

service, sir; attendant on his honour, the Mayor. Respect the bear’s

livery, and be civil. [_The_ MAYOR _motions_ AMBROSE _to stand back._

MAYOR.

My lords, I almost dread to make my suit,

Because, before ’tis made, I read too well

Refusal in your looks.

DUNBAR.

Then, pray, good sir,

Let the said suit be made to fit the wearer.

MAYOR.

The city is in flames: The trembling burghers,

Upon their knees, intreat me to implore

That ye this fated city will surrender

Before their families fall beneath the butchery

Of the rude soldiers; and their little ones

Perish of hunger, or of worse disease.

DUNBAR.

My precious gormandizers, thus you come;

Oh! cannot your Pie-powder Court supply ye.—

(I’ve heard that ye will fatten on a bell-rope,) [_Aside._

Has corporation dinners eat all up,

That thus you beard us in the face of war

With dread starvation, ere the fight’s begun?

[_The_ MAYOR, _who is a tall slender-looking man,

standing erect._

MAYOR.

My lord, I surely do not look like that!

[AMBROSE _advancing, who is a plump little man_.

AMBROSE.

Nor I, my noble lord, for my fatness comes from

my mother, rest her soul. My red complexion and

dumpling body to boot, comes from drinking nourishing

waters, as the parish clerk was wont to say, rather

than by eating gross meat from the shambles.

DUNBAR.

I suspect, fellow, thou hast not lived upon the Spittal

Spaw;[4] but be silent. Fools should not come here.

AMBROSE.

Fools will venture, my lord, where wise men dare

not enter, my lord! [_Retires._

[_To the_ OFFICER.] Why do you devour me with your

greedy eyes: didst thou ne’er see an honest man before?

MAYOR.

May’t please your lordship, ’tis no time for jesting;

O save the city ere it be too late!—

Not for myself I plead, but hapless wretches,

That run like bedlamites across the streets,

Shrieking for help; yet scarce know what they seek!

As they behold their all devour’d by fire

Lit by the glare of Ruin. For myself,

Could I shake off the manacles of age

That rivet every sinew, ye should see

Me first to mount the walls—the last to leave them.

Heard ye that shout without? I do beseech you,

With skill united, meditate our safety,

While I retire to keep the mob in order,

Lest, like the flames, they do destroy themselves.

Eternal Heav’n, why didst thou poise the world,

To hang it on such human wretchedness!

DUNBAR.

Retire, good man! and rein the brawling burghers,

While we delib’rate here, in secret council,

What best may suit the purpose of events!—

[_Exit_ MAYOR.

AMBROSE (_aside_.)

What a ravenous, rascally thing is war!—It pays no respect to persons,

gentle or semple, lord or clown. In battle, as in the grave, we are all

upon an equal footing at a short notice: so run, Ambrose, and keep at

the tail of your master; as for poor Maggy, she must shift for herself,

as the forester did when the bears devoured his wife and three sons, and

he was left alone to cry out a _Bare Week_.[5]

[_Exit_ AMBROSE.

DUNBAR.

To council now, my honoured governors!

I move that we do seek a gentle truce,

Wer’t but to earth our dead; and for this purport

Seton goes envoy to the English camp,

To ask delay, while we await the issue:

Should the proud monarch grant this small request,

Keith goes to Bamburgh, to consult the Regent

What may be done.

SETON.

And on what terms shall I crave a truce,

Since haughty Edward will not grant delay,

Unless ’tis bought with obvious advantage?

DUNBAR.

That town and castle shall be render’d up,

Unless within six days we meet with succour;

But should two hundred men at arms succeed,

To cut a passage through the English host,

We stand relieved, and meet them man for man.

KEITH.

O sage in council as renown’d in war!

We shall abide, my lord, by your decision;

Plans wisely laid, must in maturity

Bear goodly fruit; meanwhile, remember, Seton,

To seek safe-conduct to Northumberland. [_Exit_ KEITH.

SETON.

Farewell, my lord, while I proceed to Tweedmouth

Upon this desp’rate mission. Heaven forfend

That it may meet the success its importance,

Big with the fate of Scotland, doth deserve;

God and St Andrew be our country’s help!

[_Exeunt severally._

SCENE II.

_Inside of a Hovel._

AMBROSE (_solus_)

Thank Heaven! there’s peace again since the blessed parley was sounded.

Thrice blessed be the manes of the man who invented parleys; for they

speak pleasantly to the ear of the soldier that has been long deafened

with the din of war. They are like a sweet word from Maggy after a

violent scolding. Why do you cry, Mag?

_Enter_ MAGGY.

MAGGY.

Woes me! they’re leading the poor lads down the Western lane like sheep

to the slaughter, while their fathers are sobbing and their mothers are

crying.

AMBROSE.

What poor lads, Maggy?

MAGGY.

The young hostages. Devil take that English tyke, and make a haggis of

his bladder! I wonder if he has bairns of his own—and how he would like

to see them led forth like two-month-old lambs. No doubt every body

thinks their own crow the fairest!

AMBROSE.

Hush, Maggy, and shut your mouth, and talk lowly. There’s no doubt kings

and emperors come into the world and go out of it like other folk, but

they don’t care so much for their bairns as we do: seeing they get

others to keep them, and teach them, and so forth. But it does not

become either you or I to speak evil of authorities. Let us mind our own

concerns. Do you hear that noise, honey?

MAGGY.

Let us run, Ambrose, and hide ourselves in the peat cellar, where we may

pray in safety!

AMBROSE.

Get you there, while I seek the tail of my master; since, doubtless, the

greatest savages in Christendom will respect the bear’s livery, and do

no harm to the Mayor of Berwick. [_Exit_ AMBROSE.

MAGGY.

Then I’ll e’en go with you; since it is not meet that man and wife

should be separated. [_Exit._

SCENE III.

_A Room in the Castle._

_Enter_ LORD DUNBAR.

DUNBAR.

I do not like the feature of this war,

That in the shadow of my mind appears

Too like the sun that rose on fatal Duplin,

A day to be deplored in Scottish annals.

This puppet Baliol is too well supported

By that baronial faction, that do serve

The side that suits their purpose. Honesty,

Alas! has been too long estranged from Scotland.

Am I not blamed for serving England too?

Why not?—The dazzling gewgaw of a crown

Seem’d once within my grasp; my claim as good

As Bruce and Cumyn; ay, and many more.

Was not my father’s grandam sister-in-law

To Henry Fourth of England? was not Bruce

My father’s cousin? Now for once I strive

To emulate the soul of glorious Randolph,

And serve my country with a duteous love:

Edward is in my debt! Did he not hire

The monk, that, like another Saxon Coppa,

Administer’d medicine in the shape of drugs

To the regent, Thomas Randolph, my wife’s brother,

Who yielded his dear life through this assassin,

When Scotland needed most his gracious aid;

I shall requite the king; but, hark! who comes?

_Enter_ KEITH _and_ SETON.

Sir knights, so soon returned?

SETON.

Even so, my lord.

DUNBAR.

How speeds the mission?

SETON.

I’ve succeeded well,

But rather for the mission than myself;

Since a short truce is bought at a high price

For my soul’s comfort. England, as surety,

Demands eight hostages, ’mongst which my son

Is honour’d with a sorry precedence

In the devoted list. Three short, short days,

The utmost limits of this puny truce.

Heaven waft Sir William on the eagle’s wing,

And bring the Regent here with early succour;

For many a parent’s heart will throb till then.

DUNBAR.

I feel for thee, sir knight; but thy devotion

For this lost land by Heaven will be rewarded.

The deadly blast of war will soon blow o’er,

Then shall our warriors fill the goblet high

In honour of the chiefs who saved their country;

And our fair daughters, when to grandames grown,

Shall tell their children of their great grandsires

Who fought and fell at Berwick.

KEITH.

Be comforted, dear friend! what man can do

To bring relief in this sad strait shall I.

I’ll spur my steed, even to its utmost strength,

Until its coal-black sides are white with foam.

I only crave your pious dame’s best prayers

To aid me in my absence—time is short,

But summer days are long, and willing hearts

Travel like Mercury: my good lords, adieu!

[_Exit_ KEITH.

DUNBAR.

There goes as brave a knight as ever wore

A pair of gilded spurs, or e’er partook

The peacock’s royal feast.

SETON.

Yes! and I promise him two spurs of gold

Should he return in time to save the city

And those within its walls.

DUNBAR.

He reins a steed

Fresh from the desert, footed by the wind;

So, Seton, be of cheer.

SETON.

Time wears apace.—

I go to muster the young hostages,

For England’s monarch will not brook delay. [_Exeunt._

SCENE IV.

_A Room in the Governor’s House._

SIR ALEXANDER SETON, LADY SETON, MASTER THOMAS SETON, _with other

eight of the Hostages,—the_ MAYOR OF BERWICK, and AMBROSE

CARMICHAEL.—_Guards appear in waiting in the back-ground._

YOUNG SETON.

Don’t weep, my dear father and mother. I shall soon, very soon return.

Edward is a great and a good prince, and will not hurt us; and then I am

not afraid of the English, for they wear no beards, and look ladylike.

AMBROSE (_aside_.)

Neither does the vulture; but it is best to keep out of the vulture’s

claws; and I don’t like those hungry Welshmen, with their large knives.

SETON.

We shall hope the best, my dearest boy!

YOUNG SETON.

Then we’ll have such a fine view of the English camp, and those

whiskered Hainaulters, and the Yorkshire bowmen. O what sport the other

boys and I will have! Won’t we, Alan?

ALAN.

O yes! and we will learn to play at shuttlecock, and wrestle like big

men.

THE MAYOR.

Grant Heaven may protect the poor innocents!

AMBROSE (_aside_.)

Amen!—For the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel!

SETON.

Take a father’s blessing with thee, my dear Thomas.

[_Embraces him._

YOUNG SETON.

I can take nothing better with me, my dear father.

LADY SETON.

Kiss me, my dear boy!—Be brave like your brothers. Remember always that

you are a Seton, and part with your life rather than with your honour.

Kneel to no earthly power; but bow to the Majesty of heaven evening and

morning, and God will protect thee. Again, before you go, remember that

your uncle was the bosom-friend of Wallace; and, that the whole of the

Tweed will not wash the Bruce’s blood out of your veins, in whose cause

you now embark. Farewell.

[_Kisses him._

YOUNG SETON.

I will remember all, my dear mother! adieu, adieu.

_Enter_ LIEUTENANT.

LIEUTENANT.

My lord governor, the boats are ready.

AMBROSE (_aside_.)

We may thank the rascally English that the young lads must walk upon

water, and be indebted to the prayers of the Trinity friars for a safe

passage.

YOUNG SETON.

Lieutenant, we are ready; being as impatient to go as you are to fulfil

your duty. [_Exeunt severally._

AMBROSE.

Thank Heaven I am neither a burgess, nor the father of a family, else my

children might have had the honour of a tramp to the enemy’s camp!

[_Exit_ AMBROSE.

SCENE V.

_A Hall in the Castle._

_Enter_ AUBERY.

AUBERY (_sings_.)

Farewell! farewell! sweet day, adieu!

The sun that’s fading fast to view,

And sinks so lone in Arran’s wave,

Will rise to gild the patriot’s grave.

Yes! fare-thee-well! sweet day, farewell!

The evening chimes so softly swell:

Those silver chimes the patriot hears

Will be the last he lists in tears.

_Enter_ GOLDING.

How goes it, Golding? you look very sad.

GOLDING.

The prisoner died

Last night of hunger, after he had gnaw’d

His hand off, save what dangled in the chains.

Poor man! three weary days he was forgotten;

’Tis horrible—most horrible, and proves

Our cannibal nature. For, alas! I’ve heard,

That in the flowery vale of Annandale,

In ancient times, there dwelt a savage people

Call’d Ordovitians, who devour’d their prisoners;

And that the monstrous wives of such sad husbands

Slew them, if they forsook the battle-field,

Or were defeated.

AUBERY.

Tush, man! the event

I could have prophesied. Last night, on guard,

A little bird came flirting in my ears,

Like that thou bearest now. Bethought me, then,

The soul of man will enter into birds;

And it were heaven to the poor wretch who pines

His better part of life in the damp Keep

Half rotten above earth; yes! it were heaven

To leave his chains behind, and fly away,

And mingle with the mountain breeze, and be

A thing of liberty. I often wish

I were a tuneful linnet, that might fly

Unknown, to nestle on the shady Pease,

And serenade my Flora when she goes

To milk the kye on those romantic banks.

GOLDING.

Pshaw, Aubery, away with love-sick nonsense!

But, ha! I feel a tear start in mine eye,

What of the bird?—

AUBERY.

I turn’d and gazed; and, lo! the Fleming’s tower

Appear’d on fire, (even as that beauteous chapel

Seen in the wayward walks of Hawthornden

When Roslin’s lords do pay the debt of nature;)

While I distinctly heard the clash of chains

And pond’rous armour.

GOLDING.

Probable, most probable!

The armourers were at work; yet, ’tis most sad

To be pent up within these walled towns,

And fed on horse-flesh, till the leprosy

Do rot us out. Oh! for that glorious time

When, led by Douglas ’gainst Osmyn the Moor,

I first adventured in the Holy Land:

Then I was young, and burn’d for scenes of arms,

And deem’d the soldier’s life a pleasant pastime

For gallant, generous hearts that loved adventure,

Its darker parts conceal’d in the back-ground.

Then at our tinel we had spice and wine,

Trumpets and timbrels, while the choicest flowers

Of chivalry sat round the warrior’s banquet;

Graced with those dark-eyed dames, nearer allied

To Sol than those our frigid climes produce;

Beautiful, mellow, yielding as their fruit,

With hearts as cheerful as their cloudless skies;

Yes! Aubery, then the poorest sentinel

Fed like a prince, glutting the raven War

With choicest cookery.

AUBERY.

Pshaw! kickshaws and trifles;

My bag of oatmeal now would bring content,

Could I enjoy it in a peaceful shade

With Flora, and her sister Innocence.

My light iron girdle, now it lacketh flour,

Is like a body parted with the soul,

Or like our hide-form’d cauldrons void of venison.

GOLDING.

O Aubery! Aubery!

Your wit is like St Bothan’s crystal spring,

That never fogs or freezes! always pure.

AUBERY.

Heavens! for the festival of good St Cuthbert,

That we might hamstring the five harts of Selkirk

Upon their march to holy Coldingham,

To feed the greasy monks, who lacketh not.

GOLDING.

Oh! some of those fat beevies were delightful,

Which we took up in our Northumbrian raid,

And left upon the south banks of the Wear,

To feed the glutton English. But the Douglas

Liked better to destroy than eat their cattle.

Had we such leaders now, we would not starve,

While the poor burghers, Nebuchadnezzar-like,

Feed on the grass. I have not had a morsel

Free from loath’d putrefaction this bless’d month.

What boots it, then, in hungry times like these

To rear up popinjays? I’ll teach an art,

Taught by an English archer, for that bird;

Wrestle a fall with thee; and he who wins

Shall banquet on the prize.

AUBERY.

’Twere better not,

Perhaps the bird contains the prisoner’s soul!

GOLDING.

So much the better; double meals are sweet

In hungry times like these. A portly priest,

A flesher, or a tapster; each were good;

Now, for the glorious attitude of man.

[GOLDING _places himself in the wrestler’s first

position. While they wrestle, the bird is put

below a cap._ AUBERY _is thrown_.

The prize is mine! There, Aubery, thou liest

Flat as a flounder on thy spacious back,

Which might serve Thimble for a shaping-board.

[_Takes up the bird, squeezes it, and while retiring

exclaims_,

’Twill make a precious meal! [_Exit_ GOLDING.

AUBERY (_recovering_.)

Marry, it will.

I did intend it for another purpose;

To stuff it for my Flora. Devil choke thee,

No good will come of such begotten gear.

[_Exit_ AUBERY.

_Enter_ AMBROSE, _(who had observed them unseen) in the costume of one

of the_ TOWN WAITS; _viz. a large blue cloak, faced with gold lace,

and a cocked hat trimmed with the same embroidery_.

AMBROSE.

Precious fools! thus to wrangle for jackdaws, when perhaps a piece of

winged iron next moment brings their billet of reckoning. The true

saying, that every bullet has its billet, supports me amidst the

cracking of culverins, and the pouting of battering-rams, that shake the

masonry of our ramparts like an earthquake; but I must not forget the

purport of my ambassadorship. Ambrose Carmichael, town fiddler, town

crier, and grave-digger, at your service, has the honour to be the

bearer of a billet to the governor; herein shewing, that ambassadors are

but letter-carriers, and letter-carriers but pigeons. Hush! May not

these important services of mine in canny moments, hitch me into a

captaincy of the town-guard. My mother was a sensible woman in her day

and generation: she always said Ambrose would either be a little man or

a great man; so, guess ye to which my prepondering genius has a

tendency. [_Exit_ AMBROSE.

ACT II.

SCENE I.

_The Council Chamber._

LORD DUNBAR, SIR ALEXANDER SETON, _and_ SIR ALEXANDER RAMSAY, _in

conversation. Attendants in waiting in the back-ground._

[_Flourish of Drums and Trumpets._

_Enter_ HERALD.

HERALD.

In name of puissant Edward, King of England,

The Lord of Ireland, Duke of Aquatine,

I summon thee to render town and castle,

Ceded to us by John of Scotland, king,

In recompense for ancient services

Done to your country by our gracious sovereign.

DUNBAR.

We know no services your king has rendered

To this devoted land, unless ’tis service

To stir her factious nobles up to strife,

Then slay them in detail. Call ye this service?

We own no prince but David; here we stand

Receiving daily succour, and determined

To hold out while we may.

HERALD.

Enough, great baron!

Who estimatest an action by its success,

Not by its moral worth. Whence blows the wind,

The wavering wind of thy state politics? [_Aside._

My purport is to tell thee, England’s king

Has sworn procrastination’s at an end,

He hates thy evasive measures. In the name

Of England I defy thee; as a token

I throw my gauntlet thus upon the ground.

[RAMSAY, _unable to conceal his rage, kicks it away_.

Thank ye, sir knight! We will not starve you out,

But beat you out by force. Should still your gates

Remain shut up against our monarch’s mercy,

Wo be within your walls.

RAMSAY.

Sooner than yield,

I’ll fight until the walls become my monument;

Sooner than starve, I’ll plough the unpaved streets,

And wait till spring shall whiten them with grain.

SETON.

Peace, gentle Ramsay!

RAMSAY.

No!—war to the hilt!

O for the Douglas now to lead you on!

[_Exit_ RAMSAY.

SETON.

My worthy Herald, tell your puissant lord,

We crave delay, in terms of the truce,

Till Sir William Keith’s return.

DUNBAR.

’Tis meet we wait despatches from the Regent.

HERALD.

Wo be within your walls—wo to your matrons;

For high in air, like scarecrows, each young hostage

Shall teach obedience to my royal master.

SETON.

If heavenly truth remains the brightest gem

In the king’s crown; (for prince’s words are sacred,)

I crave delay in terms of the truce.

O tell your master, as he hopes for mercy

In the great day, so he will spare our feelings!

DUNBAR.

Tell king Edward,

Should not two hundred men by break of day

Break through the English host, we pay him homage.

HERALD.

Again I give defiance, and take leave,

For in my person ye’ve insulted England;

The ultimatum is, lend ears and hear,

Should ye hold out till vesper-bell be rung,

Sir Alexander Seton’s son is hung. [_Exit_ HERALD.

DUNBAR.

There goes a puppet! I should like, by heaven,

To have him in my castle’s massy Keep;

I’d wring politeness from him. Let us now

Prepare for war; but, Seton, be of cheer,

For Heaven will help, and Keith will soon be here.

[_Exeunt._

SCENE II.

_A Room in the Governor’s House._

SETON (_solus_.)

This fearful conflict, with paternal love

And duty to my country, is most dreadful;

Sure my poor heart will break, or burst the steel

That laces it. I’ve somewhere read of men

Who died for friendship; of a judge who pass’d

Sentence on his own son; but I have ne’er

Heard of that man who sacrificed his child

To save his country. It is horrible!

Bury me, earth; for what were fame, promotion,

To live the murderer—is there in our language

A term so unnatural—live the murderer

Of one’s own child! Good Heaven! I’d better live

A life of wo, an outcast from society,

Than be the death of one so young and gentle,

Who holds a charter, drawn on me by nature,

Of preservation. Ha! I see even now

My boy down on his knees, begging his life!

Asking his father not to shed his blood.

I am a monster, that with sad delay

Pass sentence on my son. These eyes behold

His tongue choked up and palsied with the halter;

That tongue—whose parting accents blest its father!

Here comes a sorry comforter, poor lady!

She walks like Melancholy; and I dread

The sternness of her dull perturbed look.

_Enter_ LADY SETON.

Hail, gentle Christian! I am sick at heart;

The want of sleep, and fearful dreams, have thrown

A languor o’er my spirits.

LADY SETON.

What news from Tweedmouth?

Does the royal tyrant, with his gilded banners

That mock the sun, intend to blast our sight,

Till Scottish mists do rot his silk pavilions,

Or Scottish earth receive his rotten heart?

SETON.

I fear thy first surmise resolves to truth,

Unless kind Heaven doth send us speedy aid;

He is no idle, no inglorious foe

Goaded by youth, ambition, rival factions;

And like his father, whom that faction duped,

Too lofty-minded for his subjects’ weal.

Had not rich France, the lion lured aside,

He’d mounced us long ere now. Alas! alas!

I can unfold no more.

LADY SETON.

Alas! I know

What ye would say. Heaven’s sovereign will be done!

But oft when storms look darkest on the Cheviot

A wandering sunbeam cheers the face of nature.

The event lies hid in dark futurity;

Whate’er the issue, Seton will not violate

His country’s trust—its safety—and his honour!

Though every pledge of mine were naked laid

Before the sabre’s edge! our weakness ne’er

Shall shade the rising glories of the war.

SETON.

O woman! to such fate canst thou abandon

The fruit of thine own womb,—that fed upon

The juices of your breast,—whose little eyes

Beam’d pleasure when they first beheld thy face!

Can ye abandon him whose latest accents

Lisp’d a farewell with tears, and blest his mother

For her maternal love; and can ye now

Forget the dearest part of woman’s nature?

Speak but the word: I render up the town.

LADY SETON.

Nay, talk not thus; let Heaven’s will be done,

Since we must suffer ill that good may follow.

God gave us children, and the Lord shall take

His own in his good time. The blessed book

Tells me of many saints in ancient times,

(When faith was nurtured on a richer soil

Than in these latter days,) who gave themselves

A sacrifice to God; and next to God’s

Our native land. “Did not the prophet Daniel

“Banquet with lions, and escaped unhurt

“From out their hungry maws, while the poor heathen

“Lay mangled round? And did not Machobee,

“With her seven sons, rather than break the laws

“By eating swine’s flesh, suffer dreadful torment?

“And did not the three children glad prefer

“The seven times heated furnace rather than bow

“The knee to idol-worship? and shall we

“Grudge God a sacrifice? forbid it, Heaven!”[6]

Remember Abram; I will not offend

Your ears with samples ta’en from writs profane;

But, see! come forth unto the battlements,

And view a scene will rouse your drooping spirits,

St Cuthbert! joy, their navy is in flames. [_Exeunt._

SCENE III.

_The Ramparts—The English Ships in the offing appear in flames._

LADY SETON.

Behold yon Fleming

Bears down amidst the smoke; and, like King David,

Grapples with a Goliath. Ha! he sinks!

The English giant drowns!

SETON.

My eyes pursue

The well-known pennon, where my William’s prow

Bears on the gun-brig. Now, they board, they board!

I hear the clash of swords,—I must away

And open the battery’s mouth; for yon corvette

Lies underneath its jaws. My love, retire.

LADY SETON.

Nay, I will tarry till yon boat approaches

The shore with tidings, which I long to hear,

Yet dread their import; for methought I saw

A gallant youth slip down between the ships!

Oh, that the slumbering heavens would rise in wrath

And rouse its eastern gales, until their navy

Lay anchor’d on our rocks,—but not in safety.

SETON.

My love, it is not safe to linger here,

Retire till I return.

_Enter_ LIEUTENANT.

Make haste and speak;

For if the face bears index of the mind

You bring no pleasant news.

LIEUTENANT.

I am, indeed, the messenger of wo;

In the sea-fight, when the two vessels closed

In mortal enmity, your gallant son

The first to board, slipt down between the ships,

And sunk to rise no more, amidst the cheers

Of victory!

SETON.

O woman! earth is reeling,

Help, help, oh!

[_While the Lady supports_ SIR ALEXANDER _sobbing; the

Attendants enter_.

LADY SETON.

O dear-bought victory, at such a price!

SETON (_recovering_.)

Bear me unto my couch. What! do I live?

Have they destroy’d my boy; methought even now

He call’d me murderer! Do I rave? Hell, hell!

Strike your red daggers hilt-deep in the tyrant,

Whose frozen heart ne’er melted with compassion!

I feel my sickness gone! away, away!

For I had need of rest. [_Exit_ SETON, _with Attendants_.

LADY SETON.

Heaven grant I meet affliction as becomes

The daughter of a Cheyne, who bears the cross

Upon his shield—itself the best of shields!

Mary, support me now! [_Exit._

SCENE IV.

_A Room in the Governor’s House._

LORD DUNBAR _and_ SIR ALEXANDER SETON _in conversation_.

_Enter_ OFFICER.

DUNBAR.

What news from Bamburgh?

OFFICER.

My lord, Sir William Keith has just arrived,

And craves admittance.

DUNBAR.

Usher his excellency in.

_Enter_ KEITH.

SETON.

Heaven brightens now! thrice welcome, gallant knight,

I weary to give up my charge to one

More fitted for the office, in these times

When men need Roman hearts. What news from England?

KEITH.

My gallant friends,

The siege is raised at Bamburgh, and the Regent

Comes with a powerful host in aid of Berwick,

That he may lure the royal beast aside,

And save us from his claws.

DUNBAR.

’Tis well!—[_Aside._] I fear

That this manœuvre will exalt his rage

To some rash act.

SETON.

O God! I dread, I fear

My boy will suffer. Oh, ’tis very sad

To be a father in the day of sorrow,

And lose a favourite child. It makes a gap

In life, which fate or time can ne’er restore.

KEITH.

Be firm, while I, De Prendergest and Gray,

Try what yet may be done. I leave this place

In noble hands, the brave Dunbar and Ramsay.

[_Exit_ KEITH.

SETON.

My Lord Dunbar, I stand in need of counsel;

Edward, I dread, will execute his threat,

Unless we render this fair town and castle;

Alas! alas! my gentle boy has fallen

In the sea-fight, and now I dread his brother,

Before another sun shall shine on Berwick,

Will be hung up to appease the tyrant’s rage!

DUNBAR.

’Twere barbarous!

But since too much approved in time of war

Men are not nice in means to serve their purpose,

I have a varlet here who owes me service,

And he will render it in gratitude,

Seeing my lady’s brother saved his life

At Roxburgh’s bridge, and gave himself in lieu

Rather against his will. This soldier, school’d

In deeds of stratagem by the Black Douglas,

Will beard the royal lion in his den,

And stay or mar his purpose.

SETON.

Be it so!—

Although in calmer hours my soul would shrink

From such an act; but being thus pursued

I can but strike, be the blow foul or fair;

And, surely, if in jeopardy the drowner

Destroys the arm that saves him, well may I

Strike down the monster who devours my flesh.

DUNBAR.

It does not merit thought; ho, Golding, here!

_Enter_ GOLDING, _in a Minstrel’s Habit_.

GOLDING.

I wait your lordship.

DUNBAR.

Thank thee, valiant man;

Speed, Golding, speed, and in thy minstrel habit

Sue for admittance to the royal tent.

Tell that there’s treason here; that ere the morrow

The castle is surrender’d; should ye fail

Signal of smoke shall show; so may ye save

The beardless hostages; so Berwick’s wives

Will bless and glad reward thee.

GOLDING.

With a kiss!

But, by the rood, should this same emprise fail—

Should I return without a draught of vengeance!

I forfeit life, and at St Mary’s Port

Dub me a traitor; your reward reserve,

As I shall prosper, so shall I deserve.

[_Exit_ GOLDING.

DUNBAR.

There goes a resolute soldier—would to Heaven

My Agnes had a dozen such at present.

Dunbar too soon will feel the brunt of war! [_Exeunt._

SCENE V.

_The Interior of a Hovel._

_Enter_ AMBROSE _and_ MAGGY.

AMBROSE.

Well, Maggy, it’s just what I said: these great people care no more for

their children than a he-cat. The governor will not open the gates to

the English to save his own son, and the upshot will be, that all the

young lads will be hanged without benefit of clergy. Ay, ay, I dread

much all will soon be over; for no doubt the young king carries his

father’s bones in his doublet, and wherever the old rascal’s bones are,

the Scots will be defeated, if we may believe the soothsayers.

MAGGY.

Woes me! and there’s my lady ranging about the town like a mad-cap,

encouraging the men to fight. It were more wise that she were down on

her bare knees like me in the peat-cellar.

AMBROSE.

’Tis very savage-hearted, Maggy, but every one is no gifted with the

treasure of humanity like you and me. They are just like the cannibal

Romans, who were never so happy as when their children were massacred in

battle.

MAGGY.

You are deep learned, Ambrose; but I often praise God that you are a

town-fiddler and not a general!

AMBROSE.

But an officer of the town-guard, Maggy, were both safe and honourable,

except on extraordinary occasions. Sieges do not happen every day.

MAGGY.

If you set your heart to that, Ambrose, I will not oppose you. I’ll

neither advise you for or against it, since I know my advice would not

be taken.

AMBROSE.

Then the salary is so handsome, Maggy; and you would go drest like a

lady!

MAGGY.

I’m not envious, Ambrose; “for pride gangs before, and shame follows;”

but we cannot help good luck if it comes to us whether we will or no.

AMBROSE.

I’m not ambitious, Maggy; every man is not born with a silver ladle in

his mouth; but if a man is gifted with talents, it were sinful to abuse

them and not use them. Ye know that old Rome was saved by the cackle of

geese.

MAGGY.

And if Rome was saved by the cackle of geese, may not Berwick, haply, be

saved by the town-fiddler?

AMBROSE.

Doubtless, Maggy; but I have a secret which I may not venture to tell

you.

MAGGY.

And why would you keep a secret from me, Ambrose?

AMBROSE.

Because I promised on my _honour_ not to divulge it.

MAGGY.

O, in that case, all’s right!—I’ll not press ye, Ambrose; but was I, who

am your born wife, included in the bargain?

AMBROSE.

All, and every one, Maggy.

MAGGY.

Then seeing, that being part of thee, I am consequently nobody, do

please tell me.

AMBROSE (_whispering_.)

I’ve been with a billet from the Mayor to the Governor. Lady Seton is

afraid of the vengeance of the King of England, and wishes to make her

escape in disguise.

MAGGY.

Oh, Ambrose! try and get me included in her train, were it only to carry

her farthingales off the causeway; for I long to leave this place; and

might be useful to my lady as a maid of honour.

AMBROSE.

It were desirable, Maggy. I shall proffer your services, which, if

accepted, may hitch us both a yard higher up the ladder of preferment.

Meanwhile clap your thumb on what I have told you. Keep your eyes open,

but your mouth shut, as the cook said to the careless scullion.

MAGGY.

As I am a woman, so shall I keep your secret: but I must go, for the

pork is frying, and I don’t wish the hungry neighbourhood to smell it.

[_Exit_ MAGGY.

AMBROSE.

Well thought; for they would fight like racoons to devour it; and would

make as much fuss about it as Symy and his lad Lowrie did for

Cowkelbie’s sow. Oh! I long to see Ambrose Carmichael, town-fiddler,

promoted to a captaincy in the town-guard, for important services

rendered to his king and country.

[_Exit_ AMBROSE.

ACT III.

SCENE I.

_The Council Chamber._

LORD DUNBAR, SIR ALEXANDER SETON, _with Attendants, grouped in

consultation_.

_Enter_ OFFICER.

OFFICER.

My lords, the herald.

HERALD.

The King of England, merciful as brave,

Doth once more summon thee, to render up

The town and castle to your rightful liege,

King Edward Baliol, who is now at Tweedmouth.

Should ye resist the royal mercy still,

The hour of vespers, which approaches near,

Shall see each hostage quivering high in air;

As token of the truth, behold, even now,

The gibbets rise before the walls of Berwick.

SETON.

Down, down, proud heart! [_Aside._

In terms of the truce, we yet do crave

Delay till Keith’s return. Speak to him, March.

DUNBAR.

Tell proud Plantagenet, king of haughty England,

That I, Patrick Dunbar, the earl of March,

Will hold this castle till its stubborn walls

Be levell’d with the ground; and if I render,

Ungird my sword, cut off my knighthood’s spurs,

And let me live degraded. When ’tis ta’en

The prince may breakfast with my lady, Agnes,

Who’ll give him warm toast in her family house,

A few leagues distant.

HERALD.

My lord, we lack not toast,

Although your lady were a noble toast

To grace a conqueror’s banquet. Here I breathe

Defiance in the name of England’s king!

Our veterans burn to kiss your yielding maids;

The gibbets are impatient; at the toll

Of vespers, mercy on each youthful soul!

[_Exit_ HERALD.

DUNBAR.

Seton, prepare for war; for in the camp

There’s mighty movements; but I do not deem

That Edward’s royal mind will stain his chaplet

By such a deed.

_Enter_ OFFICER.

OFFICER.

My lord, on the horizon

We see the troops advancing. Helm on helm,

Banner on banner, glittering in the sun;

While the far spears gleam like a silver forest

Gilded by lightning.

SETON.

Now Heaven be praised; for Keith will soon be here!

DUNBAR.

I guard the castle—Seton, to the town;

Send gallant Ramsay to protect the ramparts;

Let Prendergest and Gray close up each avenue;

This is the time when England’s arm will strike;

Ring the alarum, till the Bell Tower shakes

To its foundations, and with one voice cry

God for our country, David and St Andrew! [_Exeunt._

SCENE II.

_The Governor’s House._

_Enter_ SIR ALEXANDER SETON _and_ LADY SETON.

LADY SETON.

Whence is this haste, my lord?

SETON.

Love, to the castle,

Where ye may rest in safety as the dove

Sits in the clefted rock when tempests rave.

Oh! know ye not the assault’s again begun!

The magistrates implore us to surrender,

Alarm’d as I am for their hapless children.

LADY SETON.

What! will your coward hearts, without a blow,

Deliver up the place?

SETON.

What can we do?

For sack or storm I care not; no, not I,—

But, Heaven! my boy, my boy!

LADY SETON.

O wavering man!

Would ye give up your country’s precious trust?

By Bruce’s royal blood that warms your veins,

I conjure you to pause. Think not the tyrant

Will keep his perjured word, though ye surrender.

Ah! no; and these poor minions all too late

Will see their temples spoil’d,—their infants slain—

Chopp’d from their mothers’ breasts, virgins deflower’d,

And hoary headed men, and sickly wretches,

Piled dying on the streets; war’s red arm bared

Till Tweed run blood; the burghers crucified

By the accursed Jews let loose to plunder;

And would ye ope your adamantine gates

To such a horrid scene?

_Enter_ OFFICER.

OFFICER.

My lord governor,

In a sortie led by the gallant Ramsay,

Your son is taken by the enemy. [_Exit_ OFFICER.

SETON.

Here I stand, like Job,

Beneath the blasts of Heaven! ay, like the gourd

Smit in the wilderness. Alas! alas!

My children falling round me, one by one.

I can support no more. My son, even now,

Like his lost brother, doom’d to execution.

Heaven’s scourge falls heavy. Shall my stubborn heart

Refuse submission, that the tyrant’s vengeance

May make me childless.

LADY SETON.

My dear lord, don’t faint!

Bear yourself like a man, and comfort me,

For I had need of it. The cunning Edward

Must not betray us thus. What boots his word?

Remember thy brave brother Christopher,

Who was betray’d, beheaded, like his friend

The glorious Wallace! If they gave themselves

Martyrs for Scotland, oh! shall we refuse

Our sons, who both are young, and Heaven will sure

Reward our sacrifice with plants as fair

As those we’re doom’d to lose,—if plants as fair

May be.

SETON.

O might I perish in their stead!

But Heaven requite the tyrant’s broken faith—

Kings promise, are absolved, and die reputed

For what would damn the meanest wretch that lives.

LADY SETON.

And would ye take the tyrant at his word,

And render town and castle, fame and honour,

To be the victim of credulity,

And afterwards derided as a traitor?

Rather than homage thus Plantagenet,

Had I a thousand lives I’d lose them all;

Rather bear children daily for an age,

Than buy their lives at such a doubtful price!

While I, your lady, love, like Buchan’s countess,

Will be perch’d up upon the castle’s turrets,

Throned like a wild beast in an iron cage,

For Scorn to point at, and cry Ha! ha! ha!

SETON.

Nay, Christian, it must be, whate’er the event,

For nature now, in silent eloquence,

Even as a voice sent from the opening heavens,

Urges parental duty. What is Fame?

’Tis sound!—a bubble floating in the air;

Painted with rainbow colours, by the sun

Of dazzling honour, and as false as they;

Which men, like grown-up children, seek to catch,

Yet find it nothing,—Oh, my son! my son!

Time flies; ho! messenger! [_Exit_ SETON.

LADY SETON.

Now all is lost. [_Exit._

SCENE III.

_The English Camp at Tweedmouth._

KING EDWARD _seated under a Royal Canopy, surrounded by_ BALIOL, LORDS

MONTAGUE, D’ARCY, PERCY, JOHN OF HAINAULT, _and other Generals.

Guards in the back-ground._

[_Flourish of Trumpets._

KING EDWARD.

See that the caitiff be secured, and led

To instant execution!

OFFICER.

It shall be done, my liege. [_Exit_ OFFICER.

KING EDWARD.

These damned Scots,

Nursed in the school of Douglas, practise well

The arts of stratagem; but in the field

Are arrant cowards, else they would not shun

My chastisement. Thanks to my trusty doublet

Well temper’d, else that minion’s thirsty dagger

Had done its office. It is shameful thus

To tarry, lords, while royal blood is spilt

On such occasion.

D’ARCY.

My most gracious liege,

We wait your orders to chastise the foe.

[_They all grasp their swords._

KING EDWARD.

’Tis like the game they play’d at Stanhope Park,

When I was rescued by my gallant chaplain;

Those priests fight well; remember the brave Chapter

Of Mitton, led on by th’ Archbishop of York

Against the mob, who perish’d, every soul,

And saved the queen! these, these were noble men,

To teach my warriors valour!

D’ARCY (_aside._)

I, by Saint Patrick, that was well-fed mutton

For the poor hungry Scots.

KING EDWARD.

I burn to whet my faulchion on these Scots,

That fly like game pursued, and ever mock

Our generalship. We march,—they fly—retreat—

Till night returns, and burning villages

Tell where the base outlaws have fix’d their camp;

Next morn beholds the ravaged plains deserted,

Smoking with refuse of luxurious spoils

Stolen from our wealthy yeomen; even as those

Swart vagabonds that banquet on the heath,

Beneath the blasted tree; and fly at dawn,

Lest the fair day reveal their hellish deeds.

BALIOL.

They dread to meet your highness in the field;

But, like the assassin, strike you in your tent

When asking charity.

_Enter_ SIR RICHARD BENHALE.

KING EDWARD.

Is the caitiff hung

BENHALE.

Yes, gracious liege! and died a horrid death;

For, when upon the scaffold, from his breast

He drew a roll of flax, which, waved in air,

Sent up a rising smoke; he thrust it down

His throat,—it did the executioner’s office;

For when his entrails were taken out, they boil’d

As might become a traitor’s.

KING EDWARD.

Precious rogue!

Useful in death: He must have been a spy,

And this a signal given.

BENHALE.

Even so, my liege!

For now, seen high, upon the walls of Berwick,

The white flag’s hoisted.

KING EDWARD.

’Tis all a trick! but I am ripe for vengeance.

Hell rot their flags! my purpose now is vengeance!

Lead forth the hostages unto the ramparts,

And hang them in the very teeth of Berwick!

Let Seton’s son be strung above the rest

To rot like carrion in his mother’s face.

Let it be done in silence, that their cries,

Wafted across the Tweed, may ring i’ their ears

Through every future age the wrath of England!

Meanwhile, my warriors, Percy, John of Hainault,

And gallant D’Arcy, be upon the watch.

PERCY.

My sword will be an earnest, for the lands

I hold of Scotland; and that sword will punish

Those chiefs who sought to cheat me of my own.

[_Exit_ PERCY.

JOHN OF HAINAULT.

My heavy horse shall crush their spears to atoms!

[_Exit_ HAINAULT.

D’ARCY.

By good St Patrick, if they escape me now

I ne’er shall see your highness face again;

For I will choke with grief; then drown myself

In the bottom of Loch Neagh! [_Exit_ D’ARCY.

KING EDWARD.

And, ye young galliards! signalize yourselves.

Who first discovers where the coward Scots

Have fix’d their camp, shall from our royal bounty

Receive a pension of one hundred pounds.—

Montague sack the town; nor sex, nor age,

Nor suckling babe spare not, until the Tweed,

Swollen high with blood, o’erflows its fertile banks;

Hence shall the haughty burghers learn obedience,

Hear but the name of Edward and submit! [_Exeunt._

SCENE IV.

_A plain on the English side of the Tweed, fronting the Ramparts of

Berwick, where a Gibbet is erected, surrounded by Men-at-Arms. The

English Bugles are heard at a distance, and the Troops are seen

marshalling in the back-ground. The eight young Hostages are led

forth to Execution, with their hands pinioned, and halters tied

round their necks._

YOUNG SETON _and the other Hostages_, EXECUTIONER, GUARDS, &c.

EXECUTIONER.

Come forth, my pretty boy! you are the first

Upon the roll.

YOUNG SETON.

Thanks for the precedence!

I’m ready;—but I weep that these poor youths

Should suffer. Would that I might see the king

To intercede for them. Oh! would that I

Might feed the tyrant’s rage. Don’t weep, my lads!

For we’ll be happy soon. I envy not

The conqueror who gluts his puny vengeance

On harmless heads like ours. We die to serve

Our country, while he lives but to destroy

The innocent. I have but one request

Of thee, stern man!

EXECUTIONER.

’Tis foolish prattling;

I must make haste to do my duty.

YOUNG SETON.

O yes! make haste; I hear a parley sounded,

I see the white flag hoisted. Haste, make haste!

And tarry not, lest they give up the town

To save our lives; alas! of little moment.

But if you have a mother, stern man! hear,

Oh! hear my last request.

_Enter_ MESSENGER.

MESSENGER.

The boys are all reprieved, except young Seton;

Be quick, and execute the law on him:

The guards are murmuring at your delay.

YOUNG SETON.

My friends, farewell! as thus I kiss you all.

[SETON _embraces the Boys, who shed tears, interrupted

with sobs of joy, at being so unexpectedly

delivered, except_ ALAN, _who looks

melancholy, and takes_ SETON _by the hand_.

Since this cruel man will hearken not to me,

Alan, I pray thee, give this lock of hair

To my poor mother; tell her that I died

As her son ought to die. This silver bell

Give to my sister Margaret for her falcon;

[_The Jailer, unseen by_ SETON, _takes it from_ ALAN.

And tell my father to be comforted

Since we will meet in Heaven.—(_Kneels._) Almighty God!

Receive my sinful soul.

[_Then looks up unconcernedly into the face of the

Executioner, and exclaims_,

Sir, I am ready,—

Now God for Scotland, David, and Saint Andrew!

[_A shout is heard without. “A rescue! a rescue!”

while the curtain falls._

SCENE V.

_A Room in the Governor’s House._

LADY SETON (_sola_.)

I dread the blow is struck! O Heaven forfend!

The stroke be not too heavy for my lord,

Whose feelings are acute, since it may urge him

Over the fatal precipice of death;

I’m wondrously supported at this time—

Heaven sends afflictions, but it also sends

A supernatural strength to bear them out.

_Enter_ MESSENGER.

MESSENGER.

O that the night had never grown to day

When I was born, to be the messenger

Of such sad tidings!

LADY SETON.

Well, then, speak them out!

Since what has happen’d cannot be undone.

MESSENGER.

Lady, your son has yielded his fair life,

Innocent as the flower hid in the bud.

LADY SETON.

Was there no spark of feeling in their breasts?

Were they not men cast in a fleshly mould,

That thus they did outrage both God and man?

MESSENGER.

The men-at-arms look’d grim, and many hearts

Felt warm beneath the icy steel that braced them;

And married men shed tears. Perhaps the youths

Reminded them of home, and of their young ones

By Ouse’s side. I can no more, good lady.

[_Exit_ MESSENGER.

LADY SETON.

Monster! for once revenge shall be a virtue!

My son has died to win immortal fame,

To bloom like laurel on the shield of Cheyne,

And be a stain for aye on Edward’s chaplet.

Sound the war-slogan now—“Set-on,” to the siege,

Let the red crest spit fire—Revenge, revenge!

[_Exit_ LADY SETON.

ACT IV.

SCENE I.

_The front of Berwick Walls at Port St Mary._—RAMSAY _is seen on the

Ramparts, flying from Post to Post, and filling up the gaps made by

the Assailants, who keep up a constant discharge of Arrows. The

English Pioneers attempt to break the Barrier, and at last succeed

in burning it down. They shout, while_ LORD MONTAGUE _leads the

Assault_.

MONTAGUE.

On, on, my men of England! to the breastwork.

St George! St Edward! ho!

[_The English pull down the Drawbridge, cross

it, and fire the Gate._

Well done, my gallants, every man a hero!

Now for the plunder; see that ye spare none.

[_The Gate being consumed_, RAMSAY _calls down

the Guard from the Ramparts, rushes through

the flames, and attacks the Assailants sword

in hand_.

RAMSAY.

Back, varlets as ye are! ye shall not pass here

Until you cut a passage through our bodies;—

Charge, gallant Scots, remember Bannockburn!—

Remember how a handful of your fathers

Annull’d these braggadocios—show yourselves

Their true descendants, and don’t shame your mothers!

Charge yet again, refresh the parched earth

With the invaders’ blood—The Bruce—the Bruce!

[_After a desperate conflict, the English are beat

back, and the Scots retire within the Walls._

Thanks, gallant friends; we’ll now refresh ourselves

With what the morning’s bivouac afforded.

PRENDERGEST.

The sun has set upon a bloody day,

But it must shine upon a bloodier morrow.

RAMSAY.

And cursed be the coward heart that shrinks from

A life of honour, or a death of glory! [_Exeunt._