Читать книгу Story-Telling Ballads. Selected and Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the Boys' and Girls' Own Reading онлайн

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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;