As he lighted at the wall,

66

105

"O'er Branxholm tower, ere the morning hour, Says-"Where did ye stable my stalwart

When the lift is like lead sae blue,

The smoke shall roll white on the weary

night,

steeds,

And where do they tarry all?"

And the flame shall shine dimly through." "We stabled them sure, on the Tarras Muir; 110

We stabled them sure," quoth he"Before we could cross the quaking moss They all were lost but me."

He clenched his fist, and he knocked on the chest,

And he heard a stifled groan;

And at the third knock each rusty lock 115
Did open one by one.

O'er heathy edge, through rustling sedge, 85 Now rose with Branxholm's ae brother 125

He sped till day was set;

And he thought it was his merry men true,
When he the spearmen met.

The Teviot, high and low;

Bauld Walter by name, of meikle fame,

For none could bend his bow.

With clenched fist, he knocked on the chest, They carried him to the good greenwood

And next they passed the aspin gray,

Its leaves were rustling mournfullie; 190 "Now choose thee, choose thee, Branxholm gay!

Say, wilt thou never choose the tree?"-155 "More dear to me is the aspin gray,

160

When Soulis thought on his merry-men now,
A woful wight was he;
Says "Vengeance is mine, and I will not
repine,

But Branxholm's heir shall die!

195

More dear than any other tree;
For, beneath the shade that its branches made,
Have pass'd the vows of my love and me.”

Young Branxholm peep'd, and puirly spake,
Until he did his ain men see,
With witches' hazel in each steel cap,
In scorn of Soulis' gramarye;
Then shoulder-height for glee he lap,—
"Methinks I spye a coming tree !”—

"Ay, many may come, but few return :"

Quo' Soulis, the lord of gramarye; "No warrior's hand in fair Scotland Shall ever dint a wound on me!"

Says "What would you do, young Branx- "Now, by my sooth," quo' bold Walter,

holm,

Gin ye had me, as I have thee !""I would take you to the good greenwood And gar your ain hand wale the tree."

165

200

205

"If that be true we soon shall see."His bent bow he drew, and his arrow was

true,

But never a wound or scar had he. 210

They buried it deep, where his bones they They roll'd him up in a sheet of lead, sleep,

That mortal man might never it see; But Thomas did save it from the grave When he returned from Faërie.

234

The black spae-book from his breast he took,
And turned the leaves with curious hand;
No ropes, did he find, the wizard could bind,
But threefold ropes of sifted sand.

They sifted the sand from the Nine-stane burn,

A sheet of lead for a funeral pall;
They plunged him in the cauldron red, 265
And melted him, lead, bones, and all.

At the Skelf-hill, the cauldron still

The men of Liddesdale can show; And on the spot, where they boiled the pot, The spreat and the deer-hair ne'er shall grow. 270

"The tradition concerning the death of Lord Soulis," writes Sir Walter Scott," is not without a parallel in the real

And shaped the ropes sae curiouslie; 240 history of Scotland." Mellville, of Glenbure, Sheriff of the But the ropes would neither twist nor twine For Thomas true and his gramarye.

Mearns, was detested by the barons of his country. Reiterated complaints of his conduct having been made to James I., the monarch answered, in a moment of un. guarded impatience, "Sorrow gin the sheriff were sodden,

The black spae-book from his breast he took, and supped in broo!" The words were construed literally,

And again he turn'd it with his hand

The barons prepared a fire and a boiling cauldron, intc which they plunged the unlucky sheriff.

The Frere and the Boye: A Mery Geste.

THIS well-known tale is furnished, in its present dress, by a copy in the public library of the University of Cambridge, "Enprynted at London in Flete strete at the sygne of the sonne by Wynkyn de Worde;" compared with a later edition in the Bodleian library, "Imprinted at London at the long shop adionyning vnto Saint Mildreds Church in the Pultrie by Edward Alde;" both in quarto and black-letter, and of singular rarity, no duplicate of either being known to exist.* There is, indeed, a very old, though at the same time a most vulgar and corrupted copy extant in the first of those libraries (MSS. More, Ee. 4, 35), under the title of "The Cheylde and his step-dame," of which, besides that almost every line exhibits a various reading, the concluding stanzas are entirely different, and have, on that account, been thought worth preserving. But the most ancient copy of all would probably have been one in the Cotton library, if the volume which contained it had not unfortunately perished, with many things of greater importance, in the dreadful fire which happened in that noble repository, anno 1731. Vide Smith's Catalogue, Vitellius D. XII.

From the mention made in verse 429 of the city of "Orlyaunce," and the character of the "Offycyal," it may be conjectured that this poem is of French extraction; and, indeed, it is not at all improbable that the original is extant in some collection of old Fabliaux. A punishment similar to that of the good wife in this story, appears to have been inflicted on the widow of a St. Gengulph, for presuming to question the reality of her husband's miracles. See Heywood's History of Women, p. 196.

GOD that dyed for vs all,

And dranke both eysell and gall

There dwelled an husbonde in my countre
That had wyues thre,

By processe of tyme,

By the fyrst wyfe a sone he had,
That was a good sturdy ladde,
And an happy hyne.

His fader loued hym weel,
So dyde his moder neuer a dele,
I tell you as I thinke;

All she thought was lost, by the rode,
That dyde the ly tell boye ony good,
Other mete or drynke.

And yet y wys it was but badde,
And therof not halfe ynough he had,
But euermore of the worste:
Therfore euyll mote she fare,
For euer she dyde the lytell boye care,
As ferforth as she dorste.

10

15

20

The good wyfe to her husbonde gan saye,
I wolde ye wolde put this boye awaye, 26
And that ryght soone in haste;
Truly he is a cursed ladde,

I wolde some other man hym had,
That wolde hym better chaste.
Then sayd the good man agayne,
Dame, I shall to the sayne,
He is but tender of age;
He shall abyde with me this yere,
Tyll he be more strongere,
For to wynne better wage.
We haue a man, a stoute freke,
That in the felde kepeth our nete,
Slepynge all the daye,

30

336

35

He shall come home, so god me shelde, 40
And the boye shall into the felde,
To kepe our beestes yf he may.
Then sayd the wyfe, verament,
Therto soone I assent,

For that me thynketh moost nedy.
On the morowe whan it was daye,
The lytell boye wente on his waye,

To the felde full redy;

Of no man he had no care,

45

But sung, hey howe, awaye the mare,* 50
And made ioye ynough;

Forth he wente, truly to sayne,

This seems to have been the beginning or title of some old ballad. Maystress Tyll of Brentford takes notice of it in her "Testament," 4to. b. 1.

"Ah syrra, mary a way the mare."