Hearken, Ladye, to the tale,
How thy sons won fair Eskdale....
Earl Morton was lord of that valley fair,
The Beattisons were his vassals there.
The Earl was gentle, and mild of mood,
The vassals were warlike, and fierce, and rude;
High of heart and haughty of word,
Little they reck’d of a tame liege lord
The Earl into fair Eskdale came,
Homage and seignory to claim:
Of Gilbert the Galliard a heriot he sought,
Saying, “Give thy best steed, as a vassal ought.” ...
“Dear to me is my bonny white steed,
Oft has he help’d me at pinch of need;
Lord and Earl though thou be, I trow,
I can rein Bucksfoot better than thou.” ...
Word on word gave fuel to fire,
Till so highly blazed the Beattison’s ire,
But that the Earl the flight had ta’en,
The vassals there their lord had slain.
Sore he plied both whip and spur,
As he urged his steed through Eskdale muir;
And it fell down a weary weight,
Just on the threshold of Branksome gate.
The Earl was a wrathful man to see,
Full fain avenged would he be,
In haste to Branksome’s Lord he spoke,
Saying—“Take these traitors to thy yoke:
For a cast of hawks, and a purse of gold
All Eskdale I’ll sell thee to have and hold
Beshrew thy heart, of the Beattisons’ clan
If thou leavest on Eske a landed man;
But spare Woodkerrick’s lands alone,
For he lent me his horse to escape upon.”
A glad man then was Branksome bold,
Down he flung him the purse of gold;
To Eskdale soon he spurred amain,
And with him five hundred riders has ta’en.
He left his merrymen in the mist of the hill,
And bade them hold them close and still;
And alone he wended to the plain,
To meet with the Galliard and all his train.
To Gilbert the Galliard thus he said: ...
“Know thou me for thy liege-lord and head;
Deal not with me as with Morton tame,
For Scots play best at the roughest game.
Give me in peace my heriot due,
Thy bonny white steed, or thou shalt rue.
If my horn I three times wind,
Eskdale shall long have the sound in mind.” ...
Loudly the Beattison laugh’d in scorn;
“Little care we for thy winded horn.
Ne’er shall it be the Galliard’s lot
To yield his steed to a haughty Scott.
Wend thou to Branksome back on foot,
With rusty spur and miry boot.”...
He blew his bugle so loud and hoarse,
That the dun deer started at fair Craikcross;
He blew again so loud and clear,
Through the gray mountain-mist there did lances appear;
And the third blast rang with such a din
That the echoes answered from Pentoun-linn,
And all his riders came lightly in.
Then had you seen a gallant shock,
When saddles were emptied, and lances broke!
For each scornful word the Galliard had said,
A Beattison on the field was laid.
His own good sword the chieftain drew,
And he bore the Galliard through and through;
Where the Beattisons’ blood mix’d with the rill,
The Galliard’s Haugh men call it still.
The Scots have scatter’d the Beattison clan,
In Eskdale they left but one landed man.
The valley of Eske, from the mouth to the source,
Was lost and won for that bonny white horse.
For the rest, from fair Margaret, the lost love,
Lovelier than the rose so red,
Yet paler than the violet pale,
to Wat Tinnlin, and
The hot and hardy Rutherford
Whom men called Dickon-draw-the-sword,
“LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL”
the characters are all my ancient friends, and the time has been when the romance was history to me. The history, of course, is handled with all Scott’s freedom. Michael Scott had been dead for several centuries, not for some seventy years, and the approximate date of the tale must be the year of the religious revolution, 1559-1560; “the Regent” must be Mary of Guise. Men no longer made their vows to St. Modan and St. Mary of the Lowes, whose chapel the Scots burned in 1557: it had become fashionable to wreck churches, thanks to preaching bakers and tailors, Paul Methuen and Harlaw. Be these things as they may, and let critics be critics as of old,
Still Yarrow, as he rolls along
Bears burden to the Minstrel’s song.