The Eve of St. John. THIS ballad-the composition of Sir Walter Scott was originally published in the "Tales of Wonder," edited by M. G. Lewis. The scene of the Tragedy, Smaylho'me, or Smallholm Tower, is situated on the northern boundary of Roxburghshire, among a cluster of wild rocks, called Sandiknow Crags. 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 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 gate; 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 Watch fold, and is said to have been the station of a beacon in the times of war with England. Without the towercourt is a ruined chapel. Brotherstone is a heath, in the neighbourhood of Smaylho'me Tower."* When the ballad was republished in the "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," it was accompanied by some account of the battle of "Ancram Moor," to which reference is made in the poem, as "running red with English blood" from the fight between "keen Lord Evers" and This Ballad derives additional interest from the fact that "the ancient fortress and its vicinity formed the scene of the Editor's infancy, and seemed to claim from him this attempt to celebrate them in a Border tale." References are made, in the introduction to the 3d canto of "Marmion," to "those crags, that mountain tower, "It was a barren scene, and wild, Where naked cliffs were rudely piled; But ever and anon between Ard well the lonely infant knew "The Douglas true and the bold Buccleuch," -a fight that was ever famous in the annals of border warfare.* It took place in 1546. Evers and his colleague Sir Brian Latoun, having been promised by the English king a feudal grant of the country they had reduced to a desert, Archibald Douglas, the seventh Earl of Angus, is said to have sworn to write the deed of investiture upon their skins with sharp pens and bloody ink, in resentment for their having defaced the tombs of his ancestors at Melrose. He kept his word; at the head of one thousand men, aided by the famous Norman Lesley with a body of Fife-men, and "the bold Buccleuch" with a small but chosen body of his retainers, Evers and Latoun were met, at Ancram Moor,† with an army consisting of three thousand mercenaries, one thousand five hundred English Borderers, and seven hundred Scotchmen of "broken clans," who changed sides during the engagement, and, joining their countrymen, made a most merciless slaughter among Lord Evers was slain at Ancram Moor; and "was buried in Melrose Abbey, where his stone coffin may still be seen a little to the left of the Great Altar." The spot on which the battle was fought is called Lilyard's Edge, from an Amazonian Scottish woman of that name, who is reported, by tradition, to have distinguished herself in the same manner as Squire Witherington. The old people point out her monument, now broken and defaced. The inscription is said to have been legible within this century, and to have run thus: "Fair maiden Lylliard lies under this stane, Little was her stature, but great was her fame, And, when her legs were cutted off, she fought upon her stumps." the English fugitives. "In the battle fell Lord Evers and his son, together with Sir Brian Latoun, and eight hundred Englishmen, many of whom were persons of rank. A thousand prisoners were taken. Among these was a patriotic alderman of London, Read by name, who, having contumaciously refused to pay his portion of a benevolence demanded from the city by Henry VIII., was sent by royal authority to serve against the Scots. These, at settling his ransom, he found still more exorbitant in their exactions than the monarch." Concerning the ballad of "The Eve of St. John," Sir Walter Scott gives us no information except in the notes-and they refer exclusively to the localities among which he has laid the scene of a romantic drama. He does not appear to have pointed the moral from any particular incident; yet the lesson conveyed by the story, that "Lawless love is guilt above," "Come thou hither, my little foot-page, Though thou art young, and tender of age, is not the less forcible because it has reference And look thou tell me true! 30 36 "Though the blood-hound be mute, And the rush beneath my foot, And the warder his bugle should not blow, There sleepeth a priest in the chamber to the east, And my footstep he would know.' 85 "Yet hear but my word, my noble lord! The bold Baron's brow then changed, I trow, 120 "Where fair Tweed flows round holy Melrose, "O fear not the priest, who sleepeth to the "The varying light deceived thy sight, For to Dryburgh the way he has ta'en; And there to say mass, till three days do pass, For the soul of a knight that is slayne.' "He turn'd him round, and grimly he frown'd; Then he laughed right scornfully And the wild winds drown'd the name; For the Dryburgh bells ring, 126 And the white monks do sing, 130 For Sir Richard of Coldinghame!" He passed the court-gate, 91 And he oped the tower gate, And he mounted the narrow stair, 135 Where with maids that on her wait, He who says mass-rite for the soul of that To the bartizan seat, knight, May as well say mass for me: Frennet Hall. cies," which in Motherwell's version are removed. The ballad has a high degree of poetic merit, and probably was written at the time by an eye-witness of the event which it records; for there is "a horrid vivacity of colouring and circumstantial minuteness in the description of the agonies of the unhappy sufferers, which none but a spectator could have given." WE copy this ballad from Herd's collection | number of slight verbal and literal inaccuraof "Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs, Heroic Ballads, &c.," where it first appeared, unaccompanied, however, by note or comment, and leaving little room for doubt that it was the production of a modern pen, "written belike (we quote from Motherwell) by the ingenious hand to whom we are indebted for the Ballads of 'Duncan' and 'Kenneth,' which appear in the same work, and which, by the way, we may be pardoned for saying, are but indifferent imitations of the Ancient Ballad style." It was reprinted by Ritson, who considers it to have been "suggested by one composed at the time, a few stanzas of which were fortunately remembered by the Rev. Mr. Boyd, translator of Dante,' and were obligingly communicated to the Editor by his very ingenious and valuable friend, J. C. Walker, Esq." These stanzas we have introduced in a note. The ballad of which Ritson gave a fragment has, however, been since rescued entire. It is entitled the Fire of Frendraught," and its history is thus given by Motherwell. "For the recovery of this interesting ballad hitherto supposed to have been lost, the public is indebted to the industrious research of Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, Esq., of Edinburgh, by whom it was obligingly communicated for insertion in the present collection. It has already appeared in a smaller volume of exceeding rarity, printed at Edinburgh, in the beginning of 1824, under the title of 'A North Country Garland,' but with the disadvantage of containing a very considerable "In 1769, Mr. Herd published his Ancient and Modern Songs, Heroic Ballads, &c., and again, in 1776, in two volumes,-a collection of much merit, and one wherein many curious lyrical pieces have found a sanctuary. The principal faults of this compilation consist in its ancient and modern pieces being indiscriminately mingled together; and that no reference is even made to the authorities from which they are derived, except what this slight announcement contains: "It is divided into three parts. The first is composed of all the Scottish Ancient and Modern Heroic Ballads, or Epic tales, together with some beautiful fragments of this kind. Many of these are recovered from tradition, or old MSS., and never before printed. The second part consists of sentimental, pastoral, and love songs: and the third is a collection of comic, humorous, and jovial songs.'"-Motherwell, "Introduction to Minstrelsy, Ancient and Modern." The old ballad thus begins: "The eighteenth of October, How good Lord John and Rothiemay * * The Scottish Historians detail the appalling circumstances commemorated in the ballad. The Viscount Aboyn, son to the Marquis of Huntley, and the young laird of Rothiemay, were guests in the castle of the Laird of Frendraught. "All being at rest, about midnight that dolorous tower took fire. * Aboyn ran up stairs to Rothiemay's chamber and wakened him to rise; and as he is awakening him, the timber passage and lofting of the chamber hastily take fire, so that none of them could run down stairs again; so they turned to a window looking to the close, where they piteously cried many times, Help, help, for God's cause.' The laird and lady, with their servants, all seeing and hearing the woful crying, made no help or manner of helping; which they perceiving, cried * A passage in the old ballad is said to have received a singular illustration. When the youths in their agony called upon Lady Frendraught for mercy, she is made to reply, "The keys are casten in the deep draw well, Ye cannot get away." Mr. Finley, after regretting that all his attempts to recover the ballad had proved unsuccessful, relates the following circumstance. "A lady, a near relation of mine, lived near the spot in her youth for some time; and remembers having heard the old song mentioned by Ritson, but cannot repeat it. She says there was a verse which stated that the lord and lady locked the door of the tower, and flung the keys into the draw-well; and that, many years ago, when the well was cleared out, this tradition was corroborated by their finding the keys-at least such was the report of the country." |