'And he tirled at the pin;
And wha sae ready as his fause love,
To rise and let him in.'
The passages that describe the haunted ride in the moonlight, when the lady has fled from the scene of her treachery and guilt, are not surpassed in weird imaginative power, if they are equalled, by anything in ballad or other literature:
'She hadna ridden a mile, a mile,
Never a mile but ane,
When she was 'ware o' a tall young man
Riding slowly o'er the plain.
She turned her to the right about,
And to the left turned she;
But aye 'tween her and the wan moonlight
That tall knight did she see.'
She set whip and spur to her steed, but 'nae nearer could she get'; she appealed to him, as from a 'saikless,' or guiltless, maid to 'a leal true knight,' to draw his bridle-rein until she can come up with him:
'But nothing did that tall knight say,
And nothing did he blin;
Still slowly rade he on before,
And fast she rade behind,'
until he drew rein at a broad river-side. Then he spoke:
'"This water it is deep," he said,
"As it is wondrous dun;
But it is sic as a saikless maid,
And a leal true knight can swim."'
They plunged in together, and the flood bore them down:
'"The water is waxing deeper still,
Sae does it wax mair wide;
And aye the farther we ride on,
Farther off is the other side."
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