"Be it so, my fair one," said the king; and, taking the sword of the executioner in his hand, he touched the kneeling culprit on the shoulder with it, saying—"Rise up Sir Andrew Gut-thrie, and thus do we chain your offending hand!"—the young queen at the same moment raised a veil with which she had concealed the features of bonny Janet, and the king taking her hand, placed it in Andrew's.
"My conscience!" exclaimed Andrew, "am I in existence!—do I dream, or what?—O Jenny, woman!—O your Majesty!—what shall I say?"
"Nothing," replied the monarch, "but the king cam' in the cadger's way—and Sir Andrew Gut-thrie and his bonny bride shall be provided for."
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Bamborough.
THE ROYAL RAID.
Among the promoters of the wars and disturbances which so long ravaged the Border counties, authors have been anxious to class prominently the tender sex; not, however, in the way in which it was imputed to these fair assuagers of man's misfortunes, that they shed the blood of knights, in the times of Froissart. A whole book has been penned—and another might follow it—on the wars and dissensions produced by beautiful women; and, without mounting upwards to Eve, it has been thought very well to begin with the maiden of Troy, who produced the most spirited piece of knight-errantry that ever was acted on the stage of the world. But, in almost every case on record, it was the beauty of the fair disturbers, that, inflaming the spirit of rivalship, set men a-fighting with so much zeal; and true it seems to be, that, when beauty went into disrepute, and gunpowder came into fashion—both much about the same time—we have never had what may be called a bona fide heroic battle. But the part which the Border fair ones had in the bloody scenes of that distracted section of the country, is represented to have been very different. The housewife, in those times, served up to her hungry lord, under an imposing dish, a pair of spurs; and this is represented as having been the gentle mode by which the dame intimated that it was necessary for her lord to supply the larder. The Flower of Yarrow herself did not disdain to stimulate, in this way, the foraying spirit of old Harden. But we have good authority that there were beautiful exceptions from this barbarous practice; and, among these, we may safely place the unfortunate lady of Cockburn of Henderland, the fair subject of the pathetic ballad of "The Border Widow"—a strain which, so long as poetry shall hold any influence over the heart of man, will continue to draw "soft pity's tear." If every Border chieftain's wife had been like this lady, we would have heard and read less of raids and robberies: the dish of spurs, that sent their lords to the foray, would have been exchanged for the soft embracing arms of affection, applied to keep them at home; and the blessings of domestic peace would have harmonized with and softened the spirits which a love of riot and rapine inflamed into excesses so often ending in death. We have wept over her grave; and who that has seen the old stone in Henderland churchyard—now broken in three pieces, but bearing still that epitaph which Longinus would have pronounced sublime, "Here lies Parys of Cockburn, and his wife Marjory"—and looked on the old ruins of their castle, now scarcely sufficient for a resting place for the grey owl—could resist the rising emotion, or quell the heaving breast of pity? There lie Parys of Cockburn, and his wife Marjory! How little does that simple chronicle tell! and yet how much. The eloquence of that pregnant negative of ultra-simplicity, is felt by those who know their fate; but how many have trod on the three parts of the broken tombstone, deciphered the divided syllables, and walked on, and never inquired who was Parys of Cockburn, or Marjory his wife! Their bones have long mouldered into the dust that now feeds a few wild alpine plants; their tombstone is a broken ruin, and will soon pass away; their castle, at a few paces' distance, is also a ruin of a few black weathered stones; and the land they were proud to call their own, dignifies another name. The sculptor has failed, but the poet has succeeded; and time may flap his dark pinion in vain over the deserted churchyard of Henderland.
The Cockburns of Henderland were an old family of Selkirkshire. Long before the estate passed into the hands of strangers, we find the name and title holding a respectable place among the lists of chieftains that held a divided rule on the Borders. Those who have gratified themselves, as we have done, by a view of St. Mary's Loch, and the classic streams of the Ettrick and Yarrow, cannot fail to have seen the old property of Henderland, situated on the Megget, a small stream that runs into the loch. That was once the seat of the Cockburns; but there is a sad change there now. In the time of Lesly the historian, the whole of the country round Henderland, and the property itself, were covered with wood, that afforded shelter to the largest stags in Scotland; and now, there is scarcely a single tree that rears its head for miles around. Not distant from the mansion-house of the present proprietor, the ruins of the old castellated residence of the Cockburns may be seen; and, in the deserted burying-ground that surrounded the chapel, there is the broken tombstone, recording the deaths of the last members of the family, in the simple terms we have already mentioned. These are the appearances presented now; but, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, Henderland was a close retreat, surrounded by wood and water. The family castle stood in the midst of a dense wood of firs, mixed, in those parts where the soil supported the king of the forest, with large oaks. The Megget, rolling along its brattling stream, to St. Mary's, was, when in its calm moods, made available for the ends of picturesque beauty; and, when swollen by the mountain rills, served as a defence to the grounds and residence. In building their strengths, all the Border chiefs had particular reference to the natural advantages of the situation: the middle of a morass, the edge of a precipice rising from a mountain torrent, or a small island in the midst of a lake or river, were held to be favoured localities; and Selkirkshire, in curious accordance with the habits of the people, had and has no want of these natural strongholds. Henderland had, perhaps, less to boast of, in point of natural strength, than Tushielaw, Mangerton, and some other of the Border residences; but, in the beauty of its wooded scenery, and the picturesque effect of sleeping lochs and roaring torrents, it might not be excelled in all the Borders.