Читать книгу Story-Telling Ballads - Various - Страница 16

It was about the midnight time,

When his dungeon door ga’ed back;

And the sentinel who guarded it

Let in a woman in black.

“What want ye wi’ me, fair Maiden?”

The Scott o’ Harden said.

“I come to ask if thy dying wish

Can be by me obeyed?

“I am a lassie o’ the house,

And wait on Sir Gideon’s dame;

And tho’ ye have refused poor Meg,

Her prayers will be the same.”

“Why has Dame Murray sent thee here?”—

“She has a woman’s heart.

Ye have a mother and sisters twain,

From whom full soon ye part.

“If ye have anything to say,

Ye would have carried there,

I swear by all that’s good on earth,

To be your messenger.”

“Maiden,” quo’ he, and his voice was low,

“Of my mother do not speak;

I wish to die as my father’s son,

And yet her heart I break.”

“It cannot be,” then said the girl,

“Ye have rejected Meg,

Without the looking on her face?

I’m sure your life she’d beg.”

“I have not seen, but I have heard

Her face described to me;

And, by my faith, between the two,

I’ll chose the gallows-tree.”

The tears fell from that poor girl’s eyes,

In anger or in spleen?—

And ever and anon she sighed,

And deep sobs came between.

“Belike,” quo’ she, “they’ve painted her

Far worse than she may look;

Many a man has an ugly wife,

That the gallows could not brook.”

“I have no wish to see her face,

Far less to marry her;

But ye seem o’ a kindly heart,

And aiblins are as fair.

“So let me see your face, my joy,

And by your countenance,

I’ll see if I dare trust you with

A letter for my chance?”

She threw the veil from off her face,

“I’m no well faured I know;

But kernels lie inside hard shells,

And gold in the earth below.”

“So sweet and sensible ye speak,

Ye almost make me wish,

Meikle-Mouthed Meg was like to you,

So kind, so young, so lish.”

He held the light within the cruse

Close to the maiden’s face,

Wi’ loof o’er e’en, he earnestly

Perused each simple grace.

He saw her face was fair and round,

Her lips like a large rose-leaf;

And her snow-white teeth so even showed,

Like ivory from their sheath.

There stood a tear in her dove-blue eye,

Her eye so mild and meek,

A large tear slowly left the lid,

And trickled down her cheek.

“Ye have the look that never lied,

And tho’ no fine your face,

Ye’ve pleasing sense and kindliness

Wi’ every modest grace.

“So bring to me the writing ink,

The paper and pen so fine;

And tho’ ye abide wi’ my enemy,

Ye’ll take my mother a line.”

She rolled it up so carefully,

The letter he writ so fair;

She had no silk, but she tied it with

A lock o’ her golden hair.