No! vainly to each holy shrine,
In mutual pilgrimage, they drew;*
Implored, in vain, the grace
divine

For chiefs, their own red falchions slew:
While Cessford owns the rule of Car,t
While Ettrick beasts the line of Scott,
The slaughtered chiefs, the mortal jar,
The havoc of the feudal war,
Shall never, never be forgot!

IX.

In sorrow, o'er lord Walter's bier
The warlike foresters had bent;
And many a flower, and many a tear,

Old Teviot's maids and matrons lent:
But o'er her warrior's bloody bier
The Ladye dropped nor flower nor tear!
Vengeance, deep-brooding o'er the slain,
Had locked the source of softer woe;
And burning pride, and high disdain,
Forbade the rising tear to flow;
Until, amid his sorrowing clan,

Her son lisped from the nurse's knee"And, if I live to be a man,

"My father's death revenged shall be!" Then fast the mother's tears did seek To dew the infant's kindling cheek.

X.

All loose her negligent attire,

All loose her golden hair,

Hung Margaret o'er her slaughtered sire,
And wept in wild despair.

Among other expedients resorted to for stanching the feud betwixt the Scotts and the Kerrs, there was a bond executed, in 1529, between the heads of each clan, binding themselves to perform reciprocally the four principal pilgrimages of Scotland, for the benefit of the souls of those of the opposite name who had fallen in the quarrel. Such pactions were not uncommon in feudal times; but they were often, as in the present case, void of the desired effect.

The family of Ker, Kerr, or Car, was very powerful on the Border. Fynes Morrison remarks, in his Travels, that their influence extended from the village of Preston Grange, in Lothian, to the limits of England. The Duke of Roxburghe represents Ker of Cessford.

But not alone the bitter tear

Had filial grief supplied;

For hopeless love, and anxious fear,
Had lent their mingled tide:
Nor in her mother's altered eye
Dared she to look for sympathy.
Her lover, 'gainst her father's clan,
With Car in arms had stood,

When Mathouse-burn to Melrose ran,
All purple with their blood.

And well she knew, her mother dread,
Before lord Cranstoun she should wed,*
Would see her on her dying bed.

XI.

Of noble race the Ladye came;
Her father was a clerk of fame,

Of Bethune's line of Picardie:+

He learned the art, that none may name,
In Padua, far beyond the sea.
Men said, he changed his mortal frame
By feat of magic mystery;

For when, in studious mood, he paced
St Andrew's cloistered hall,

His form no darkening shadow traced
Upon the sunny wall!§

The Cranstouns, Lord Cranstoun, are an ancient Border family, whose chief seat was at Crailing in Teviotdale. They were at this time at feud with the clan of Scott; for it appears that the Lady of Buccleuch, in 1557, beset the laird of Cranstoun, seeking his life. Nevertheless, the same Cranstoun, or perhaps his aon, was married to a daughter of the same lady,

The Bethunes were of French origin, and the name was accounted among the most noble in France. The family of Bethune, or Beatoun, in Fife, produced three learned and dignified prelates; and from it was descended Dame Janet Beaton, Lady Buccleuch, widow of Sir Walter Scott of Branksome. She was a woman or masculine spirit, and possessed the hereditary abilities of her family in such a degree, that the superstition of the vulgar imputed them to supernatural knowledge.

Padua was long supposed by the Scottish peasants to be the principal school of necron ancy.

§ The vulgar conceive, that when a class of students have made a certain progress in their mystic studies, they are obliged to run through a subterraneous hall, where the devil literally catches the hindmest in the race, unless he crosses the hall so speedily, that the arch enemy can only apprehend his shadow. Those, who hve thas lost their shadow, always prove the best magicians.

XII.

And of his skill, as bards avow,
He taught that Ladye fair,
Till to her bidding she could bow
The viewless forms of air.*
And now she sits in secret bower,
In old Lord David's western tower,
And listens to a heavy sound,

That moans the mossy turrets round.
Is it the roar of Teviot's tide,

That chafes against the scaur'st red side?、

Is it the wind that swings the oaks?

Is it the echo from the rocks?

What may it be, the heavy sound,

That moans old Branksome's turrets round?

XIII.

At the sullen, moaning sound,
The ban-dogs bay and howl;
And, from the turrets round,
Loud whoops the startled owl.
In the hall, both squire and knight
Swore that a storm was near,
And looked forth to view the night;
But the night was still and clear!

XIV.

From the sound of Teviot's tide,
Chafing with the mountain's side,

From the groan of the wind-swung oak,
From the sullen echo of the rock,
From the voice of the coming storm,
The Ladve knew it well!

It was the Spirit of the Flood that spoke,
And he called on the Spirit of the Fell

The Scottish vulgar, believe in the existence of spirits residing in the air, or in the waters, to whose agency they ascribe floods storns, and tempests. The introduction of the River and Moun tain Spirits therefore accords with the general tone of the romance, and the superstitions of the country where the scene is laid,

+ Scaur, a precipitous bank of earth,

XV.

RIVER SPIRIT.

"Sleepest thou, brother?"

MOUNTAIN SPIRIT.
"Brother, nay-

On my hills the moon-beams play
From Craik-cross to Skelfhill-pen,
By every rill, in every glen,

Merry elves their morrice pacing,
To aerial minstrelsy,

Emerald rings on brown heath tracing,
Trip it deft and merrily.
Up, and mark their nimble feet!
Up, and list their music sweet!"

XVI.

RIVER SPIRIT.

"Tears of an imprisoned maiden
Mix with my polluted stream;
Margaret of Branksome, sorrow-laden,
Mourns beneath the moon's pale beam.
Tell me, thou, who viewest the stars,
When shall cease these feudal jars?
What shall be the maiden's fate?
Who shall be the maiden's mate ?"

XVII.

MOUNTAIN SPIRIT.

"Arthur's slow wain his course doth roll,
In utter darkness, round the pole;
The Northern Bear lowers black and grim;
Orion's studded belt is dim;
Twinkling faint, and distant far,
Shimmers through mist each planet star;
Ill may I read their high decree:
But no kind influence deign they shower
On Teviot's tide, and Branksome's tower.
Till pride be quelled, and love be free."

XVIII.

The unearthly voices ceast,
And the heavy sound was still;

וי

It died on the river's breast,

It died on the side of the hill.But round Lord David's tower The sound still floated near; For it rung in the Ladye's bower, And it rung in the Ladye's ear. She raised her stately head,

And her heart throbbed high with pride:"Your mountains shall bend,

And your streams ascend,

Ere Margaret be our foeman's bride!"

XIX.

The Ladye sought the lofty hall,
Where many a bold retainer lay,
And, with jocund din, among them all,
Her son pursued his infant play.
A fancied moss-trooper, the boy
The truncheon of a spear bestrode,
And round the hall, right merrily,
In mimic foray rode.

Even bearded knights, in arms grown old,
Share in his frolic gambols bore,
Albeit their hearts, of rugged mould,
Were stubborn as the steel they wore.
For the gray warriors prophesied,
How the brave boy, in future war,
Should tame the Unicorn's pride,
Exalt the Crescents and the Star.†

XX.

The Ladye forgot her purpose high,
One moment, and no more;
One moment gazed with a mother's eye,
As she paused at the arched door:

#Moss-trooper was the usual appellation of the marauders upon the Border; a profession diligently pursued by the inhabitants on both sides, and by none more actively and successfully than by Buccleuch's clan. Their predatory inroads were termed forays, + The arms of the Kerrs of Cessford were, Vert on a chiveroa, betwixt three unicorns' heads erased argent. three mollets auble. Crest, an unicorn's head erased proper. The Scotts of Buccleuch bore, Or on a bend azure; a star of six points betwixt two crescents of the first.