'To turn the rein were sin and shame,
To fright were wondrous peril:
What would ye do now, Roland Cheyne,
Were ye Glenallan's Earl?'
'Were I Glenallan's Earl this tide,
And ye were Roland Cheyne,
The spear should be in my horse's side,
The bridle upon his mane.
'If they hae twenty thousand blades,
And we twice ten times ten,
Yet they hae but their tartan plaids,
And we are mail-clad men.
'My horse shall ride through ranks sae rude,
As through the moorland fern,
Then ne'er let gentle Norman blude
Grow cauld for Hieland kerne!'"
Scott was no declaimer. Although bred a barrister, he estimated the faculty of speech at its proper value, and never thought of making his heroes, on the eve of battle, address their soldiery in a harangue which would do credit to a President of the Speculative Society. In certain positions, eloquence is not only thrown away, but is felt to be rank impertinence. No need of rhetorical artifice to persuade the mob to the pumping of a pickpocket, or, in case of a general row, to the assault of an intoxicated policeman. Such things come quite naturally to their hands without exhortation, and it is dangerous to interfere with instinct. The Homeric heroes are, of any thing, a little too much given to talking. You observe two hulking fellows, in all their panoply of shield and armour, drawing nigh to one another at the fords of the Scamander, each with a spear about the size of a moderate ash-tree across his shoulder. The well-greaved Greek, you already know, is deep in the confidences of Minerva; the hairy Trojan, on the contrary, is protected by the Lady Venus. You expect an immediate onslaught; when, to your astonishment, the Greek politely craves some information touching a genealogical point in the history of his antagonist's family; whereat the other, nothing loath, indulges him with a yarn about Assaracus. Tros being out of breath, the Argive can do nothing less than proffer a bouncer about Hercules; so that, for at least half an hour, they stand lying like a brace of Sinbads—whilst Ajax, on the right, is spearing his proportion of the Dardans, and Sarpedon doing equal execution among the unfortunate Achivi on the left. Nor, until either warrior has exhausted his patriarchal reminiscences, do they heave up the boss and the bull-hide, or make play for a thrust at the midriff. Now, unless the genealogy of their opponents was a point of honour with the ancients—which it does not appear to have been—these colloquies seem a little out of place. In the middle ages, a knight would not enter the lists against an opponent of lesser rank; and in such a case, explanation is intelligible. But in battle there was no distinction of ranks, and no man cared a stiver about the birth and parentage of another. Genealogies, in fact, are awkward things, and should be eschewed by gentlemen in familiar discourse, as tending much less towards edification than offence. Many people are absurdly jealous on the subject of their coffined sires; nor is it wise in convivial moments to strike up an ancestral ditty to the tune of—
"Green grows the grass o'er the graves of my governors."
It was an unfortunate accident of this kind which led to the battle of the Reidswire.
"Carmichael bade him speak out plainly,
And cloke no cause for ill nor gude;
The other, answering him as vainly,
Began to reckon kin and blude.
He rase, and raxed him, where he stude,
And bade him match him with his marrows:
Then Tynedale heard them reason rude,
And they loot off a flight of arrows."
Scott's heroes are unusually terse and taciturn. They know their business better than to talk when they should be up and doing; and accordingly, with them, it is just a word and a blow.
"But no whit weary did he seem,
When, dancing in the sunny beam,
He marked the crane on the Baron's crest;
For his ready spear was in its rest.
Few were the words, and stern and high,
That marked the foemen's feudal hate;
For question fierce and proud reply,
Gave signal soon of dire debate.
Their very coursers seem'd to know,
That each was other's mortal foe,
And snorted fire, when wheel'd around,
To give each knight his vantage ground.