From cant of sermon and of creed,
And Cavaliers, whose souls like mine
Spurn at the bonds of discipline.
Wiser, we judge, by dale and wold
A warfare of our own to hold
Than breathe our last on battle-down
For cloak or surplice, mace or crown.
Our schemes are laid, our purpose set,
A chief and leader lack we yet.
Thou art a wanderer, it is said,
For Mortham's death thy steps waylaid,
Thy head at price so say our spies,
Who ranged the valley in disguise.
Join then with us: though wild debate

And wrangling rend our infant state,
Each, to an equal loath to bow,
Will yield to chief renowned as thou.'-

XIII.

'Even now,' thought Bertram, passionstirred,

'I called on hell, and hell has heard! What lack I, vengeance to command, But of stanch comrades such a band? This Denzil, vowed to every evil, Might read a lesson to the devil. Well, be it so! each knave and fool Shall serve as my revenge's tool.' Aloud, I take thy proffer, Guy, But tell me where thy comrades lie.' 'Not far from hence,' Guy Denzil said; 'Descend and cross the river's bed Where rises yonder cliff so gray.' 'Do thou,' said Bertram, lead the way.' Then muttered, It is best make sure; Guy Denzil's faith was never pure.' He followed down the steep descent, Then through the Greta's streams they went;

And when they reached the farther shore They stood the lonely cliff before.

XIV.

With wonder Bertram heard within
The flinty rock a murmured din ;
But when Guy pulled the wilding spray
And brambles from its base away,
He saw appearing to the air

A little entrance low and square,
Like opening cell of hermit lone,
Dark winding through the living stone.
Here entered Denzil, Bertram here;
And loud and louder on their ear,
As from the bowels of the earth,
Resounded shouts of boisterous mirth.
Of old the cavern strait and rude
In slaty rock the peasant hewed;
And Brignall's woods and Scargill's wave
E'en now o'er many a sister cave,
Where, far within the darksome rift,
The wedge and lever ply their thrift.
But war had silenced rural trade,
And the deserted mine was made
The banquet-hall and fortress too
Of Denzil and his desperate crew.
There Guilt his anxious revel kept
There on his sordid pallet slept
Guilt-born Excess, the goblet drained
Still in his slumbering grasp retained;
Regret was there, his eye still cast
With vain repining on the past;
Among the feasters waited near
Sorrow and unrepentant Fear,

And Blasphemy, to frenzy driven,
With his own crimes reproaching Heaven;
While Bertram showed amid the crew
The Master-Fiend that Milton drew.

XV.

Hark! the loud revel wakes again
To greet the leader of the train.
Behold the group by the pale lamp
That struggles with the earthy damp.
By what strange features Vice hath known
To single out and mark her own!

Yet some there are whose brows retain
Less deeply stamped her brand and stain.
See yon pale stripling! when a boy,
A mother's pride, a father's joy!
Now, 'gainst the vault's rude walls reclined,
An early image fills his mind:

The cottage once his sire's he sees,
Embowered upon the banks of Tees;
He views sweet Winston's woodland scene,
And shares the dance on Gainford-green.
A tear is springing but the zest
Of some wild tale or brutal jest
Hath to loud laughter stirred the rest.
On him they call, the aptest mate
For jovial song and merry feat:

Fast flies his dream- with dauntless air,

As one victorious o'er despair,

He bids the ruddy cup go round

Till sense and sorrow both are drowned;
And soon in merry wassail he,
The life of all their revelry,

Peals his loud song! - The muse has found
Her blossoms on the wildest ground,
Mid noxious weeds at random strewed,
Themselves all profitless and rude.
With desperate merriment he sung,
The cavern to the chorus rung,
Yet mingled with his reckless glee
Remorse's bitter agony.

XVI.

Song.

O, Brignall banks are wild and fair,
And Greta woods are green,
And you may gather garlands there
Would grace a summer queen.
And as I rode by Dalton-hall,
Beneath the turrets high,
A maiden on the castle wall
Was singing merrily, —

CHORUS.

'O, Brignall banks are fresh and fair,
And Greta woods are green;
I'd rather rove with Edmund there
Than reign our English queen.'

'If, maiden, thou wouldst wend with me,

To leave both tower and town, Thou first must guess what life lead we That dwell by dale and down? And if thou canst that riddle read, As read full well you may, Then to the greenwood shalt thou speed, As blithe as Queen of May.'

CHORUS.

Yet sung she, 'Brignall banks are fair,
And Greta woods are green;
I'd rather rove with Edmund there
Than reign our English queen.

XVII.

'I read you, by your bugle horn, And by your palfrey good,

I read you for a ranger sworn
To keep the king's greenwood.'
‘A ranger, lady, winds his horn,
And 't is at peep of light;

His blast is heard at merry morn,
And mine at dead of night.'

CHORUS.

Yet sung she, Brignall banks are fair,
And Greta woods are gay;

I would I were with Edmund there,
To reign his Queen of May!

With burnished brand and musketoon
So gallantly you come,

I read you for a bold dragoon,
That lists the tuck of drum.'

'I list no more the tuck of drum,
No more the trumpet hear;
But when the beetle sounds his hum,
My comrades take the spear.

CHORUS.

'And O, though Brignall banks be fair, And Greta woods be gay,

Yet mickle must the maiden dare

Would reign my Queen of May!

XVIII.

'Maiden! a nameless life I lead,

A nameless death I'll die;

The fiend whose lantern lights the mead
Were better mate than I!

And when I'm with my comrades met
Beneath the greenwood bough,
What once we were we all forget,
Nor think what we are now.

CHORUS.

'Yet Brignall banks are fresh and fair,
And Greta woods are green,
And you may gather garlands there
Would grace a summer queen.'

When Edmund ceased his simple song,
Was silence on the sullen throng,
Till waked some ruder mate their glee
With note of coarser minstrelsy.
But far apart in dark divan,
Denzil and Bertram many a plan
Of import foul and fierce designed,
While still on Bertram's grasping mind
The wealth of murdered Mortham hung;
Though half he feared his daring tongue,
When it should give his wishes birth,
Might raise a spectre from the earth!

XIX.

At length his wondrous tale he told;
When scornful smiled his comrade bold,
For, trained in license of a court,
Religion's self was Denzil's sport;
Then judge in what contempt he held
The visionary tales of eld!

His awe for Bertram scarce repressed
The unbeliever's sneering jest,
"'T were hard,' he said, 'for sage or seer
To spell the subject of your fear;
Nor do I boast the art renowned
Vision and omen to expound.
Yet, faith if I must needs afford
To spectre watching treasured hoard,
As ban-dog keeps his master's roof,
Bidding the plunderer stand aloof,
This doubt remains- thy goblin gaunt
Hath chosen ill his ghostly haunt;
For why his guard on Mortham hold,
When Rokeby castle hath the gold
Thy patron won on Indian soil
By stealth, by piracy, and spoil?' -

XX.

At this he paused for angry shame
Lowered on the brow of Risingham.
He blushed to think, that he should seem
Assertor of an airy dream,

And gave his wrath another theme.
Denzil,' he says, though lowly laid,
Wrong not the memory of the dead;
For while he lived at Mortham's look
Thy very soul, Guy Denzil, shook!
And when he taxed thy breach of word
To
yon fair rose of Allenford,

I saw thee crouch like chastened hound
Whose back the huntsman's lash hath found.
Nor dare to call his foreign wealth

The spoil of piracy or stealth;
He won it bravely with his brand

When Spain waged warfare with our land.
Mark, too I brook no idle jeer,
Nor couple Bertram's name with fear;
Mine is but half the demon's lot,

For I believe, but tremble not.

Soon quenched was Denzil's ill-timed mirth;
Rather he would have seen the earth
Give to ten thousand spectres birth
Than venture to awake to flame
The deadly wrath of Risingham.
Submiss he answered, Mortham's mind,
Thou know'st, to joy was ill inclined.
In youth, 't is said, a gallant free,
A lusty reveller was he;

.

But since returned from over sea,
A sullen and a silent mood

Hath numbed the current of his blood.
Hence he refused each kindly call
To Rokeby's hospitable hall,
And our stout knight, at dawn or morn
Who loved to hear the bugle-horn,
Nor less, when eve his oaks embrowned,
To see the ruddy cup go round,
Took umbrage that a friend so near
Refused to share his chase and cheer;
Thus did the kindred barons jar
Ere they divided in the war.
Yet, trust me, friend, Matilda fair

Of Mortham's wealth is destined heir.'

XXII.

'Destined to her! to yon slight maid!
The prize my life had wellnigh paid
When 'gainst Laroche by Cayo's wave
I fought my patron's wealth to save!
Denzil, I knew him long, yet ne'er
Knew him that joyous cavalier
Whom youthful friends and early fame
Called soul of gallantry and game.
A moody man he sought our crew,
Desperate and dark, whom no one knew,
And rose, as men with us must rise,
By scorning life and all its ties.
On each adventure rash he roved,
As danger for itself he loved;

On his sad brow nor mirth nor wine
Could e'er one wrinkled knot untwine;
Ill was the omen if he smiled,
For 't was in peril stern and wild;
But when he laughed each luckless mate
Might hold our fortune desperate.
Foremost he fought in every broil,
Then scornful turned him from the spoil,
Nay, often strove to bar the way
Between his comrades and their prey;
Preaching even then to such as we,
Hot with our dear-bought victory,
Of mercy and humanity.

XXIII.

I loved him well his fearless part, His gallant leading, won my heart. And after each victorious fight, 'T was I that wrangled for his right, Redeemed his portion of the prey That greedier mates had torn away, In field and storm thrice saved his life, And once amid our comrades' strife. Yes, I have loved thee! Well hath proved My toil, my danger, how I loved! Yet will I mourn no more thy fate, Ingrate in life, in death ingrate. Rise if thou canst!' he looked around And sternly stamped upon the ground Rise, with thy bearing proud and high, Even as this morn it met mine eye, And give me, if thou darest, the lie!' He paused then, calm and passion-freed, Bade Denzil with his tale proceed.

XXIV.

Bertram, to thee I need not tell,
What thou hast cause to wot so well,
How superstition's nets were twined
Around the Lord of Mortham's mind;
But since he drove thee from his tower,
A maid he found in Greta's bower
Whose speech, like David's harp, had sway
To charm his evil fiend away.

I know not if her features moved
Remembrance of the wife he loved,
But he would gaze upon her eye,
Till his mood softened to a sigh.
He, whom no living mortal sought
To question of his secret thought,
Now every thought and care confessed
To his fair niece's faithful breast;
Nor was there aught of rich and rare,
In earth, in ocean, or in air,
But it must deck Matilda's hair.
Her love still bound him unto life;
But then awoke the civil strife,
And menials bore by his commands
Three coffers with their iron bands
From Mortham's vault at midnight deep
To her lone bower in Rokeby-Keep,
Ponderous with gold and plate of pride,
His gift, if he in battle died.'