Читать книгу Story-Telling Ballads - Various - Страница 14

They gained the lands o’ Elibank,

And gathered the gear together;

They counted tens, and came to scores,

And drove them out the heather.

There was not a Murray on the lea,

Young Scott his heart was light;

“There’ll be a dry breakfast at Elibank,

At Oakwood, a meal to-night.”

They got half way to Ettrick stream,

When they heard a sleuth-hound yell,

And Scott well kenned his mortal foe,

Pursued him o’er the fell.

Sir Gideon was a doure fierce man,

A terror to a foe;

He had a wife and daughters three,

Well dowered they were I trow.

He let young Harden steal his cows,

And, oh! his arm was slack;

But the grim old Knight was looking on

Wi’ fifty men at his back.

“I have thee now like a thief in a mill,”

Sir Gideon o’ Elibank said;

He gave the word to loose the hounds;

And the hot pursuit he led.

“Young Scott, yield quietly to me,”

Sir Gideon loudly cried,

“Or a thief’s death shall ye die,

If ye the onset bide.

“Ye’ve driven off my cows and sheep,

And byre and fold are toom,

The corbies and ye shall be acquaint,

For what this night ye’ve done.”

“Brag on! brag on! ye old greybeard!

While Scott o’ Harden stands,

No power on earth shall make him yield

To any o’ Murray’s bands.

“So do your best, and do your worst,

Here’s a hand and sword to fight;

I trow a Scott ne’er turned his back

Whilst a Murray was in sight.”

“Small mercy after what ye’ve stol’n,

I had designed for thee;

But, callant, after what ye’ve said,

I’ll prove your enemy.”

“Thou old man, measure weapons then,

And I would have ye leave

Your well-faured daughters to the world,

For your loss must they grieve.”

“Before sunrise,” quoth Gideon,

“You’ll speak less vauntingly;

Say what ye like of me, you dog,

But leave my bairnies be.”

The strife went high and bloodily,

They grappled at the throat;

And many was the Elibank,

The reavers deadly smote.

The guns banged off, the sleuth-hounds yelled,

The cattle rowted sore;

And many wights lay on the ground,

That up rose never more.

The fray went hard wi’ Willie Scott,

His horse fell wi’ a bound,

And many Murrays wi’ their swords

Bore him unto the ground.