And they drank the red wine through the helmet barred.”
That verse is worth a volume of history in emphasizing the irregular life of the time and place where every man’s charter was his sword. In the description of William of Deloraine and the holy monk digging up the grave of the wizard, Michael, Scott reveals the superstition of the times:
“Slow moved the Monk to the broad flag-stone,
Which the bloody cross was traced upon;
He pointed to a secret nook;
An iron bar the warrior took;
And the Monk made a sign with his withered hand,
The grave’s huge portal to expand.”
The adventure with the strange knight on his return, the gathering of the clans by the beacon light, the English forces drawn up before the castle, and the decision of the battle by the conflict of single champions, are all true to the spirit of the times. Everything is so weird and wild that even the dwarf, the book and magic charms do not seem entirely out of place in the story. We must remember that it is a land of tradition—a land aglow with the deeds of the Douglas and the Percy; and those interested in the Border History will be well repaid by reading carefully the notes accompanying the poem. It was a labor of love to the author, for it relates intimately to the valley of the Tweed. Here and there throughout the poem his enthusiasm breaks out for “the land of brown heath and shaggy wood—land of the mountain and the flood.” It would seem like sacrilege not to quote the familiar lines:
“Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,