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decessors, are said to have possessed since the days of Robert Bruce. As the quegrich was used to cure diseases, this document is, probably, the most ancient patent ever granted for a quack medicine. The ingenious correspondent, by whom it is furnished, further observes, that additional particulars concerning St. Fillan are to be found in Ballenden's Boece, book 4, folio cexiii, and in Pennant's Tour in Scotland, 1772, pp. 11, 15.

THE EVE OF ST. JOHN.

And he whistled thrice for his little foot-page,
His name was English Will.
"Come thou hither, my little foot-page;
Come hither to my knee;

Though thou art young, and tender of age,

I think thou art true to me.

"Come, tell me all that thou hast seen,

And look thou tell me true!
Since I from Smaylho'me tower have been,
What did thy lady do?"

"My lady, each night, sought the lonely light,
That burns on the wild Watchfold;
For, from height to height, the beacons bright
Of the English foemen told.

SMAYLHO ME, or Smallholm Tower, the scene of the following ballad, is situated on the northern boundary of Roxburghshire, among a cluster of wild rocks, called Sandiknow Crags, the property. of Hugh Scott, Esq., of Harden. The tower is a high square building, surrounded by an outer wall,

now ruinous. The circuit of the outer court, being defended, on three sides, by a precipice and morass, is accessible only from the west, by a steep and rocky path. The apartments, as is usual in a border-keep, or fortress, are placed one above another, and communicate by a narrow stair; on the roof are two bartizans, or platforms, for defence or pleasure. The inner door of the tower is wood, the outer an iron grate; the distance between them being nine feet, the thickness, namely, of the wall. From the elevated situation of Smaylho'me Tower, it is seen many miles in every direction. Among the crags by which it is surrounded, one, more eminent, is called The Watchfold; and is said to have been the station of a beacon, in the times of war with England. Without the tower-court is a ruined chapel. Brotherstone is a heath, in the neighbourhood of Smaylho'me Tower.

The bittern clamoured from the moss,
The wind blew loud and shrill;

Yet

the craggy pathway she did cross,
To the eiry beacon hill.

"I watched her steps, and silent came
Where she sat her on a stone;
No watchman stood by the dreary flame;
It burned all alone.

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The second night I kept her in sight,
Till to the fire she came,
And, by Mary's might! an armed knight
Stood by the lonely flame.

And many a word that warlike lord
Did speak to my lady there;

But the rain fell fast, and loud blew the blast,
And I heard not what they were.
"The third night there the sky was fair,
And the mountain blast was still,
As again I watched the secret pair,
On the lonesome beacon hill.

This ancient fortress and its vicinity formed the
scene of the author's infancy, and seemed to claim"
from him this attempt to celebrate them in a border
tale. The catastrophe of the tale is founded upon
a well-known Irish tradition.

THE baron of Smaylho'me rose with day,
He spurred his courser on,

Without stop or stay, down the rocky way,
That leads to Brotherstone.

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

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

Yet his plate-jack* was braced, and his helmet
was laced,

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

The baron returned in three days' space,
And his looks were sad and sour;

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

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

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

Yet was his helmet hacked and hewed,

His acton pierced and tore;

His axe and his dagger with blood embrued,
But it was not English gore.
He lighted at the Chapellage,

He held him close and still;

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

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

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

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

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

"I cannot come; I must not come,

1 dare not come to thee;

On the eve of St. John 1 must wander alone;
In thy bower I may not be.'

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

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

"And I'll chain the blood-hound, and the warder

shall not sound,

And rushes shall be strewed on the stair, So, by the black rood-stone,* and by holy St. John, I conjure thee, my love, to be there!? "Though the blood-hound be mute, and the rush beneath my foot,

And the warder his bugle should not blow, Yet there sleepeth a priest in the chamber to the east,

And my footstep he would know.'

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

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

+Dryburgh abbey is beautifully situated on the banks of the Tweed. After its dissolution, it became the property

to John Eure and his heirs, ancestor to the lord tle, until their ferocity occasioned their being ex. Eure that now is, and for his service done in these tirpated, about forty years ago. Their appearance partes, with market, &c. dated at Lanercost, the was beautiful, being milk white, with black muz 20th day of October, anno regis, 34."-Stowe's zles, horns, and hoofs. The bulls are described Annals, p. 210. This grant, like that of Henry, by ancient authors, as having white manes; but must have been dangerous to the receiver. those of latter days had lost that peculiarity, perhaps by intermixture with the tame breed.*

2. There is a nun in Dryburgh bower.- P. 404. The circumstance of the nun, "who never saw in detailing the death of the regent Murray, the day," is not entirely imaginary. About fifty which is made the subject of the following ballad, years ago, an unfortunate female wanderer took it would be injustice to my reader to use other up her residence in a dark vault, among the ruins words than those of Dr. Robertson, whose account of Dryburgh-abbey, which, during the day, she of that memorable event forms a beautiful piece of never quitted. When night fell, she issued from historical painting. this miserable habitation, and went to the house "Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh was the person of Mr. Haliburton, of Newmains, the editor's who committed this barbarous action. He had great-grandfather, or to that of Mr. Erskine, of been condemned to death soon after the battle of Shielfield, two gentlemen of the neighbourhood. Langside, as we have already related, and owed From their charity she obtained such necessaries his life to the regent's clemency. But part of his as she could be prevailed upon to accept. At estate had been bestowed upon one of the regent's twelve, each night, she lighted her candle, and favourites,† who siezed his house, and turned out returned to her vault; assuring her friendly neigh- his wife, naked, in a cold night, into the open bours that, during her absence, her habitation was fields, where, before next morning, she became arranged by a spirit, to whom she gave the un- furiously mad. This injury made a deeper imcouth name of Fatlips; describing him as a little pression on him than the benefit he had received, man, wearing heavy iron shoes, with which he and from that moment he vowed to be revenged of trampled the clay floor of the vault, to dispel the the regent. Party rage strengthened and inflamed damps. This circumstance caused her to be re- his private resentment. His kinsmen, the Hamil garded, by the well-informed, with compassion, as tons, applauded the enterprise. The maxims of deranged in her understanding; and by the vulgar, that age justified the most desperate course he with some degree of terror. The cause of her could take to obtain vengeance. He followed the adopting this extraordinary mode of life she would regent for some time, and watched for an oppor never explain. It was, however, believed to have tunity to strike the blow. He resolved, at last, to been occasioned by a vow, that, during the absence wait till his enemy should arrive at Linlithgow, of a man, to whom she was attached, she would through which he was to pass, in his way from never look upon the sun. Her lover never re- Stirling to Edinburgh. He took his stand in a turned. He fell during the civil war of 1745-6, wooden gallery, which had a window towards the and she never more would behold the light of day. street; spread a feather-bed on the floor, to hinder The vault, or rather dungeon, in which this un- the noise of his feet from being heard; hung up a fortunate woman lived and died, passes still by black cloth behind him, that his shadow might not the name of the supernatural being, with which be observed from without; and, after all this preits gloom was tenanted by her disturbed imagina-paration, calmly expected the regent's approach, tion, and few of the neighbouring peasants dare who had lodged, during the night, in a house not enter it by night.

CADYOW CASTLE.

ADDRESSED TO THE

RIGHT HON. LADY ANNE HAMILTON,

creep

far distant. Some indistinct information of the danger which threatened him had been conveyed to the regent, and he paid so much regard to it, that he resolved to return by the same gate through which he had entered, and to fetch a compass round the town. But, as the crowd about the gate was great, and he himself unacquainted with fear, be proceeded directly along the street; and the throng of people obliging him to move very slowly, gave the assassin time to take so true an aim, that he shot him, with a single bullet, through the lower part of his belly, and killed the horse of a gentleman, who rode on his other side. His followers instantly endeavoured to break into the house whence the blow had come; but they found the door strongly barricaded, and, before it could be forced open, Hamilton had mounted a fleet horse,§ which stood ready for him at a back-passage, and

THE ruins of Cadyow, or Cadzow castle, the ancient baronial residence of the family of Hamilton, are situated upon the precipitous banks of the river Evan, about two miles above its junction with the Clyde. It was dismantled in the conclusion of the civil wars, during the reign of the unfortunate Mary, to whose cause the house of Hamilton devoted themselves with a generous zeal, which occasioned their temporary obscurity, and, very nearly, their total ruin. The situation of the ruins, embosomed in wood, darkened by ivy and ing shrubs, and overhanging the brawling torrent, is romantic in the highest degree. In the immediate vicinity of Cadyow is a grove of immense oaks, the remains of the Caledonian forest, which anciently extended through the south of Scotland, from the Eastern to the Atlantic Ocean. Some of these trees measure twenty-five feet, and upwards, in circumference, and the state of decay, in which which it was attached was the property of the archbishop This projecting gallery is still shown. The house to they now appear, shows, that they may have wit-of St. Andrews, a natural brother of the duke of Chatelnessed the rites of the druids. The whole scenery is included in the magnificent and extensive park of the duke of Hamilton. There was long preservd in this forest the breed of the Scottish wild cat

and are still to be seen at Chillingham castle in Northum They were formerly kept in the park at Drumlanrig berland. For their nature and ferocity, see Notes.

This was sir James Ballenden, lord-justice-elerk whose shameful and inhuman rapacity occasioned the catastrophe in the text.-Spottiswoode.

herault, and uncle to Bothwellhaugh. This, among many
other circumstances, seems to evince the aid which Both-
wellhaugh received from his clan in effecting his purpose.
broath.
The gift of lord John Hamilton, commendator of Ar

was got far beyond their reach. The regent died the same night of his wound."-History of Scotland, book v.

Bothwellhaugh rode straight to Hamilton, where he was received in triumph; for the ashes of the houses in Clydesdale, which had been burned by Murray's army, were yet smoking; and party prejudice, the habits of the age, and the enormity of the provocation, seemed to his kinsmen to justify his deed. After a short abode at Hamilton, this fierce and determined man left Scotland, and served in France, under the patronage of the family of Guise, to whom he was doubtless recommended by having avenged the cause of their niece, queen Mary, upon her ungrateful brother. De Thou has recorded, that an attempt was made to engage him to assassinate Gaspar de Coligni, the famous admiral of France, and the buckler of the Huguenot

cause.

But the character of Bothwellhaugh was mistaken. He was no mercenary trader in blood, and rejected the offer with contempt and indignation. He had no authority, he said, from Scotland, to commit murders in France; he had avenged his own just quarrel, but he would neither, for price -Thuanus, nor prayer, avenge that of another man.— cap. 46.

The regent's death happened 23d January, 1569. It is applauded, or stigmatized, by contemporary historians, according to their religious or party prejudices. The triumph of Blackwood is unbounded. He not only extols the pious feat of Bothwellhaugh, "who," he observes, "satisfied, with a single ounce of lead, him, whose sacrilegious avarice had stripped the metropolitan church of St. Andrews of its covering;" but he ascribes it to immediate Divine inspiration, and the escape of Hamilton to little less than the miraculous interference of the Deity.-Jebb, vol. ii, p. 263. With equal injustice it was, by others, made the ground of a general national reflection; for, when Mather urged Berney to assassinate Burleigh, and quoted the examples of Poltrot and Bothwellhaugh, the other conspirators answered, "that neither Poltrot nor Hambleton did attempt their enterpryse, without some reason or consideration to lead them to it: as the one, by hyre, and promise of preferment or rewarde; the other, upon desperate mind of revenge, for a lytle wrong done unto him, as the report goethe, accordinge to the vyle trayterous disposysyon of the hoole natyon of the Scottes.". Murdin's State Papers, vol. i, p. 197.

WHEN princely Hamilton's abode

Ennobled Cadyow's Gothic towers, The song went round, the goblet flow'd, And revel sped the laughing hours. Then, thrilling to the harp's gay sound, So sweetly rung each vaulted wall, And echoed light the dancer's bound,

As mirth and music cheered the hall.
But Cadyow's towers, in ruins laid,

And vaults, by ivy mantled o'er,
Thrill to the music of the shade,
Or echo Evan's hoarser roar.
Yet still, of Cadyow's faded fame,
You bid me tell a minstrel tale,
And tune my harp, of border frame,
On the wild banks of Evandale.

For thou, from scenes of courtly pride,
From pleasure's lighter scenes, canst turn,

To draw oblivion's pall aside,

And mark the long forgotten urn.
Then, noble maid! at thy command,
Again the crumbled halls shall rise;
Lo! as on Evan's banks we stand,

The past returns, the present flies.
Where with the rock's wood-covered side
Were blended late the ruins green,
Rise turrets in fantastic pride,

And feudal banners flaunt between.
Where the rude torrent's brawling course
Was shagged with thorn and tangling sloe,
The ashler buttress braves its force,

And ramparts frown in battled row.
'Tis night: the shade of keep and spire
Obscurely dance on Evan's stream,
And on the wave the warder's fire

Is chequering the moonlight beam.
Fades slow their light; the east is gray;
The weary warder leaves his tower;
Steeds snort; uncoupled stag-hounds bay,
And merry hunters quit the bower.
The drawbridge falls, they hurry out;
Clatters each plank and swinging chain,
As, dashing o'er, the jovial rout

Ürge the shy steed, and slack the rein.
First of his troop, the chief rode on;1
His shouting merrymen throng behind;
The steed of princely Hamilton

Was fleeter than the mountain wind.
From the thick copse the roebucks bound,
The startling red deer scuds the plain;
For the hoarse bugle's warrior sound
Has roused their mountain haunts again.
Through the huge oaks of Evandale,

Whose limbs a thousand years have worn,
What sullen roar comes down the gale,
And drowns the hunter's pealing horn?
Mightiest of all the beasts of chase,
That roam in woody Caledon,
Crashing the forest in his race,

The mountain bull comes thundering on.3
Fierce, on the hunters' quivered band,
He rolls his eye of swarthy glow,
Spurns, with black hoof and horn, the sand,
And tosses high his mane of snow.
Aimed well, the chieftain's lance has flown;
Struggling in blood the savage lies;
His roar is sunk in hollow groan!

Sound, merry huntsmen! sound the pryse!❤ 'Tis noon: against the knotted oak

The hunters rest the idle spear;
Curls through the trees the slender smoke,
Where yeomen dight the woodland cheer.
Proudly the chieftain marked his clan,

On greenwood lap all careless thrown,
Yet missed his eye the boldest man,
That bore the name of Hamilton.
"Why fills not Bothwellhaugh his place,
Still wont our weal and wo to share?
Why comes he not our sport to grace?
Why shares he not our hunter's fare?"
Stern Claud replied, with darkening face,
(Gray Pasley's haughty lord was he, )3
Pryse-The note blown at the death of the game.

to John Eure and his heirs, ancestor to the lord tle, until their ferocity occasioned their being exEure that now is, and for his service done in these tirpated, about forty years ago. Their appearance partes, with market, &c. dated at Lanercost, the 20th day of October, anno regis, 34."-Stowe's Annals, p. 210. This grant, like that of Henry, must have been dangerous to the receiver.

was beautiful, being milk white, with black muzzles, horns, and hoofs. The bulls are described by ancient authors, as having white manes; but those of latter days had lost that peculiarity, perhaps by intermixture with the tame breed.'

2. There is a nun in Dryburgh bower.- P. 404. The circumstance of the nun, "who never saw in detailing the death of the regent Murray, the day," is not entirely imaginary. About fifty which is made the subject of the following ballad, years ago, an unfortunate female wanderer took it would be injustice to my reader to use other up her residence in a dark vault, among the ruins words than those of Dr. Robertson, whose account of Dryburgh-abbey, which, during the day, she of that memorable event forms a beautiful piece of never quitted. When night fell, she issued from historical painting. this miserable habitation, and went to the house "Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh was the person of Mr. Haliburton, of Newmains, the editor's who committed this barbarous action. He had great-grandfather, or to that of Mr. Erskine, of been condemned to death soon after the battle of Shielfield, two gentlemen of the neighbourhood. Langside, as we have already related, and owed From their charity she obtained such necessaries his life to the regent's clemency. But part of his as she could be prevailed upon to accept. At estate had been bestowed upon one of the regent's twelve, each night, she lighted her candle, and favourites,† who siezed his house, and turned out returned to her vault; assuring her friendly neigh- his wife, naked, in a cold night, into the open bours that, during her absence, her habitation was fields, where, before next morning, she became arranged by a spirit, to whom she gave the un- furiously mad. This injury made a deeper imcouth name of Fatlips; describing him as a little pression on him than the benefit he had received, man, wearing heavy iron shoes, with which he and from that moment he vowed to be revenged of trampled the clay floor of the vault, to dispel the the regent. Party rage strengthened and inflamed damps. This circumstance caused her to be re- his private resentment. His kinsmen, the Hamilgarded, by the well-informed, with compassion, as tons, applauded the enterprise. The maxims of deranged in her understanding; and by the vulgar, that age justified the most desperate course he with some degree of terror. The cause of her could take to obtain vengeance. He followed the adopting this extraordinary mode of life she would regent for some time, and watched for an oppor never explain. It was, however, believed to have tunity to strike the blow. He resolved, at last, to been occasioned by a vow, that, during the absence wait till his enemy should arrive at Linlithgow, of a man, to whom she was attached, she would through which he was to pass, in his way from never look upon the sun. Her lover never re- Stirling to Edinburgh. He took his stand in a turned. He fell during the civil war of 1745-6, wooden gallery, which had a window towards the and she never more would behold the light of day. street; spread a feather-bed on the floor, to hinder The vault, or rather dungeon, in which this un- the noise of his feet from being heard; hung up a fortunate woman lived and died, passes still by black cloth behind him, that his shadow might not the name of the supernatural being, with which be observed from without; and, after all this preits gloom was tenanted by her disturbed imagina-paration, calmly expected the regent's approach, tion, and few of the neighbouring peasants dare who had lodged, during the night, in a house not enter it by night.

CADYOW CASTLE.

ADDRESSED TO THE

RIGHT HON. LADY ANNE HAMILTON.

far distant. Some indistinct information of the danger which threatened him had been conveyed to the regent, and he paid so much regard to it, that he resolved to return by the same gate through which he had entered, and to fetch a compass round the town. But, as the crowd about the gate was great, and he himself unacquainted with fear, he proceeded directly along the street; and the throng of people obliging him to move very slowly, gave the assassin time to take so true an aim, that he shot him, with a single bullet, through the lower part of his belly, and killed the horse of a gentleman, who rode on his other side. His followers instantly endeavoured to break into the house whence the blow had come; but they found the door strongly barricaded, and, before it could be which stood ready for him at a back-passage, and forced open, Hamilton had mounted a fleet horse, §

THE ruins of Cadyow, or Cadzow castle, the ancient baronial residence of the family of Hamilton, are situated upon the precipitous banks of the river Evan, about two miles above its junction with the Clyde. It was dismantled in the conclusion of the civil wars, during the reign of the unfortunate Mary, to whose cause the house of Hamilton devoted themselves with a generous zeal, which occasioned their temporary obscurity, and, very nearly, their total ruin. The situation of the ruins, embosomed in wood, darkened by ivy and creep ing shrubs, and overhanging the brawling torrent, is romantic in the highest degree. In the immediate vicinity of Cadyow is a grove of immense oaks, the remains of the Caledonian forest, which anciently extended through the south of Scotland, from the Eastern to the Atlantic Ocean. Some of these trees measure twenty-five feet, and upwards, in circumference, and the state of decay, in which which it was attached was the property of the archbishop This projecting gallery is still shown. The house to they now appear, shows, that they may have wit-of St. Andrews, a natural brother of the duke of Chatelnessed the rites of the druids. The whole scenery herault, and uncle to Bothwellhaugh. This, among many is included in the magnificent and extensive park wellhaugh received from his clan in effecting his purpose. other circumstances, seems to evince the aid which Bothof the duke of Hamilton. There was long preservd in this forest the breed of the Scottish wild cat-broath.

and are still to be seen at Chillingham castle in Northum They were formerly kept in the park at Drumlanrig berland. For their nature and ferocity, see Notes.

This was sir James Ballenden, lord-justice-elerk whose shameful and inhuman rapacity occasioned the catastrophe in the text.-Spottiswoode.

The gift of lord John Hamilton, commendator of Ar

was got far beyond their reach. The regent died the same night of his wound."-History of Scotland, book v.

Bothwellhaugh rode straight to Hamilton, where he was received in triumph; for the ashes of the houses in Clydesdale, which had been burned by Murray's army, were yet smoking; and party prejudice, the habits of the age, and the enormity of the provocation, seemed to his kinsmen to justify his deed. After a short abode at Hamilton, this fierce and determined man left Scotland, and served in France, under the patronage of the family of Guise, to whom he was doubtless recommended by having avenged the cause of their niece, queen Mary, upon her ungrateful brother. De Thou has recorded, that an attempt was made to engage him to assassinate Gaspar de Coligni, the famous admiral of France, and the buckler of the Huguenot

cause.

But the character of Bothwellhaugh was mistaken. He was no mercenary trader in blood, and rejected the offer with contempt and indignation. He had no authority, he said, from Scotland, to commit murders in France; he had avenged his own just quarrel, but he would neither, for price -Thuanus, nor prayer, avenge that of another man.—

сар.

46.

The regent's death happened 23d January, 1569. It is applauded, or stigmatized, by contemporary historians, according to their religious or party prejudices. The triumph of Blackwood is unbounded. He not only extols the pious feat of Bothwellhaugh, "who," he observes, "satisfied, with a single ounce of lead, him, whose sacrilegious avarice had stripped the metropolitan church of St. Andrews of its covering;" but he ascribes it to immediate Divine inspiration, and the escape of Hamilton to little less than the miraculous interference of the Deity.-Jebb, vol. ii, p. 263. With equal injustice it was, by others, made the ground of a general national reflection; for, when Mather urged Berney to assassinate Burleigh, and quoted the examples of Poltrot and Bothwellhaugh, the other conspirators answered, "that neither Poltrot nor Hambleton did attempt their enterpryse, without some reason or consideration to lead them to it: as the one, by hyre, and promise of preferment or rewarde; the other, upon desperate mind of revenge, for a lytle wrong done unto him, as the report goethe, accordinge to the vyle trayterous disposysyon of the hoole natyon of the Scottes.". Murdin's Stute Papers, vol. i, p.

197.

WHEN princely Hamilton's abode

Ennobled Cadyow's Gothic towers, The song went round, the goblet flow'd, And revel sped the laughing hours. Then, thrilling to the harp's gay sound, So sweetly rung each vaulted wall, And echoed light the dancer's bound,

As mirth and music cheered the hall.
But Cadyow's towers, in ruins laid,

And vaults, by ivy mantled o'er,
Thrill to the music of the shade,
Or echo Evan's hoarser roar.
Yet still, of Cadyow's faded fame,
You bid me tell a minstrel tale,
And tune my harp, of border frame,
On the wild banks of Evandale.

For thou, from scenes of courtly pride,
From pleasure's lighter scenes, canst turn,

To draw oblivion's pall aside,
And mark the long forgotten urn.
Then, noble maid! at thy command,
Again the crumbled halls shall rise;
Lo! as on Evan's banks we stand,

The past returns, the present flies. Where with the rock's wood-covered side Were blended late the ruins green, Rise turrets in fantastic pride,

And feudal banners flaunt between.
Where the rude torrent's brawling course
Was shagged with thorn and tangling sloe,
The ashler buttress braves its force,

And ramparts frown in battled row.
'Tis night: the shade of keep and spire
Obscurely dance on Evan's stream,
And on the wave the warder's fire

Is chequering the moonlight beam.
Fades slow their light; the east is gray;
The weary warder leaves his tower;
Steeds snort; uncoupled stag-hounds bay,
And merry hunters quit the bower.
The drawbridge falls, they hurry out;
Clatters each plank and swinging chain,
As, dashing o'er, the jovial rout

Ürge the shy steed, and slack the rein.
First of his troop, the chief rode on;1
His shouting merrymen throng behind;
The steed of princely Hamilton

Was fleeter than the mountain wind.
From the thick copse the roebucks bound,
The startling red deer scuds the plain;
For the hoarse bugle's warrior sound
Has roused their mountain haunts again.
Through the huge oaks of Evandale,

Whose limbs a thousand years have worn, What sullen roar comes down the gale,

And drowns the hunter's pealing horn?
Mightiest of all the beasts of chase,
That roam in woody Caledon,
Crashing the forest in his race,

The mountain bull comes thundering on.3
Fierce, on the hunters' quivered band,
He rolls his eye of swarthy glow,
Spurns, with black hoof and horn, the sand,
And tosses high his mane of snow.

Aimed well, the chieftain's lance has flown;
Struggling in blood the savage lies;
His roar is sunk in hollow groan!

Sound, merry huntsmen! sound the pryse!❤ 'Tis noon: against the knotted oak

The hunters rest the idle spear; Curls through the trees the slender smoke, Where yeomen dight the woodland cheer. Proudly the chieftain marked his clan, On greenwood lap all careless thrown, Yet missed his eye the boldest man, That bore the name of Hamilton. "Why fills not Bothwellhaugh his place, Still wont our weal and wo to share? Why comes he not our sport to grace? Why shares he not our hunter's fare?" Stern Claud replied, with darkening face, (Gray Pasley's haughty lord was he,)3 Pryse-The note blown at the death of the game.

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