"'See there! see there! What yonder swings
And creaks 'mid whistling rain?'—
Gibbet and steel, the accursed wheel,
A murderer in his chain.
"'Hollo! thou felon, follow here,
To bridal bed we ride;
And thou shalt prance a fetter dance
Before me and my bride.'
"And hurry, hurry! clash, clash, clash!
The wasted form descends;
And fleet as wind, through hazel bush,
The wild career attends.
"Tramp, tramp! along the land they rode;
Splash, splash! along the sea;
The scourge is red, the spur drops blood.
The flashing pebbles flee."[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 125: George Cranstoun, Lord Corehouse.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 126: Decisions by Lord Fountainhall.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 127: A very intimate friend both of Scott and of the lady tells me that these verses were great favorites of hers—she gave himself a copy of them, and no doubt her recitation had made them known to Scott—but that he believes them to have been composed by Mrs. Hunter of Norwich.—(1839.)[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 128: Mr. Scott of Harden's right to the peerage of Polwarth, as representing, through his mother, the line of Marchmont, was allowed by the House of Lords in 1835.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 129: The Kelso Mail.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 130: Some extracts from this venerable person's unpublished Memoirs of his own Life have been kindly sent to me by his son, the well-known physician of Chelsea College, from which it appears that the reverend doctor, and, more particularly still, his wife, a lady of remarkable talent and humor, had formed a high notion of Scott's future eminence at a very early period of his life. Dr. S. survived to a great old age, preserving his faculties quite entire, and I have spent many pleasant hours under his hospitable roof in company with Sir Walter Scott. We heard him preach an excellent circuit sermon when he was upwards of eighty-two, and at the Judges' dinner afterwards he was among the gayest of the company.[Back to Main Text]