Amang their noble kin;
But they maun lye in Stronach haugh,
To biek forenent the sin.
O Bessie Bell and Mary Gray,
They war twa bonnie lasses;
They biggit a bower on yon Burn-brae,
And theekit it o'er wi' rashes.
Biggit and theekit means builded and thatched; and the twelfth line is "to bask beneath the sun."
[64].
A tragic tale is hidden, rather than told, in this old Scottish ballad. It resembles a half ruinous house in a desolate country, dense green with briar and bramble, echoing with wild voices—its memories gone. Mr. Nahum's picture for it was of a figure in a woman's bright clothes and scarlet hood, but with what looked to me like the head of his own skeleton deep within the hood. And on a stone nearby sat a little winged boy.