Then up with the Maxwells! not valour need say more;
We'll conquer, or die by our banner and claymore!
Huzza, huzza!
This slogan was chorussed by several hundreds of dirks, which, now unscabbarded, were loudly thundered on the hospitable board, and which glittered ominously in the reflected light of the blazing chandelier.
The men of Annandale now started up; when claymore, dirk, and whinger, flew forth from their scabbards. The men of Nithsdale rose too at the same instant, and all was uproar, madness, riot, and inebriation; and the fierce and implacable hatred of the two clans, which, not extinct, had secretly lurked in their veins, now blazed forth with increased fury. It seemed as if fate had pronounced,
"Let the loud trumpet far and near proclaim
Our bloody feast, and at the rousing sound
Let every clansman of the hated name
His vengeful weapon clench."