O then she did kick the young imps about,—
Says one to the other, "Let's try turn her out."
She spied thirteen imps all dancing in chains, 15
She up with her pattens, and beat out their brains.
She knocked the old Satan against the wall,—
"Let's try turn her out, or she'll murder us all."
Now he's bundled her up on his back amain,
And to her old husband he took her again. 20
"I have been a tormentor the whole of my life,
But I ne'er was tormented till I met with your wife."
[THE DUEL OF WHARTON AND STUART.]
Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, iii. 77.
The unhappy event upon which the following ballad is founded took place under the reign of James the VI.