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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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.

Lady Murray came forth at noon,

To welcome her husband home;

And there she spied young Scott o’ Harden,

All bounden and his lone.

They thrust the Scott in a darksome room,

And left him to his thought;

But neither bread nor yet red wine

Unto the youth they brought.

“And what, Lord Gideon,” said his dame,

“Will ye do wi’ young Scott?”

“Do ye see yonder branch o’ the elm,

For that shall be his lot.”

“O goodman,” quo’ his pitying dame,

“Ye could not do this thing;

For lifting a pickle o’ your nowt,

So brave a lad to hing!”

“What mercy did ever a Scott o’ them