"And first the ridge of mingled spears
Above the brightening cloud appears;
And in the smoke the pennon flew,
As in the storm the white sea mew,
Then mark'd they, dashing broad and far,
The broken billows of the war;
And plumed crests of chieftains brave,
Floating like foam upon the wave,
But nought distinct they see.
Wide ranged the battle on the plain;
Spears shook, and falchions flash'd amain,
Fell England's arrow flight like rain,
Crests rose and stooped and rose again
Wild and disorderly."
Thousands were lost on both sides. But the flower of England was in France, while the flower of Scotland was here; and slain—the king, twelve earls, fifteen lords and chiefs, an archbishop, the French ambassador, and many French captains.
You walk back from the Field, and all the world is changed. The green haughs, the green woodlands, seem even in the summer sun to be dun and sere, and those burns which made merry on the outward way—can it be that there are red shadows in their waters? It is not "Marmion" but Jean Elliott's "Flower of the Forest" that lilts through the memory—
"Dule and wae was the order sent our lads to the Border,
The English for once by guile won the day;
The Flowers of the Forest that foucht aye the foremost,
The pride of our land are cauld in the clay.
"We'll hear nae mair liltin' at the eve milkin',
Women and bairns are heartless and wae;
Sighin' and moanin' on ilka green loanin'—
The Flowers of the Forest are a' wede away."
I know not by what alchemy the Scots are always able to win our sympathy to their historic tragedies, or why upon such a field as Flodden, and many another, the tragedy seems but to have just happened, the loss is as though of yesterday.
CHAPTER II
SCOTTS-LAND
t is possible to enter the Middle Marches from Berwick; in truth, Kelso lies scarcely farther from Flodden than does Berwick. But Flodden is on English soil to-day, and memory is content to let it lie there. These Middle Marches however are so essentially Scottish, the splendour and the romance, the history and the tragedy, that one would fain keep them so, and come upon them as did the kings from David I, or even the Celtic kings before him, who sought refuge from the bleak Scottish north in this smiling land of dales and haughs, of burns and lochs. Not at any moment could life become monotonous even in this realm of romance, since the Border was near, and danger and dispute so imminent, so incessant.