Then and there the feud was ended. The Ladye of Branksome, declaring that 'pride is quelled and love is free,' gave the hand of Margaret to the Baron of Cranstoun, with all the noble lords assembled to grace the betrothal with their presence.
The sixth canto is superfluous if we consider that the story ends with the betrothal. And yet it contains some of the finest passages in the whole poem. It opens with that superb outburst of patriotism, beginning,—
Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land?—
which shows, better than anything else, the extent to which Scott's inspiration was derived from his own Scotland.
O Caledonia, stern and wild,
Meet nurse for a poetic child!
Land of brown heath and shaggy wood,
Land of the mountain and the flood,
Land of my sires! what mortal hand
Can e'er untie the filial band
That knits me to thy rugged strand!
Here, too, we find the ballad of the lovely Rosabelle, having its scene in the Castle of Roslin, in the vale of the Esk, which Scott learned to love during those six bright years spent at Lasswade. This alone would almost justify the extra canto, but we have in addition the stately requiem of Melrose Abbey, bringing the poem to a solemn and beautiful close.
Then comes the final word of the old minstrel:—
Hushed is the harp—the Minstrel gone.
And did he wander forth alone?
Alone, in indigence and age,
To linger out his pilgrimage?
No: close beneath proud Newark's tower
Arose the Minstrel's lowly bower,
A simple hut; but there was seen
The little garden hedged with green,
The cheerful hearth, and lattice clean.