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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E’er show to me or mine?

The reaving Scotts shall surely weep,

The last of all their line.”

She said, “But we have daughters three,

And they are no well-faured,

When ye’ve a husband to your hand,

To hang him would be hard.”

“Sooth, goodwife, faith, but ye are right!

There’s wisdom in your say;

This birkie Scott shall have his choice,

To wed what one he may.

“We’ll give him respite to the morn,

Nor hang him ’gainst all law;

To marry our daughter Meikle-Mouthed Meg,

Or choke with the death-thraw.”

Quo’ she, “To marry our daughter Meg

More wiselike would it be,

Than kill the hope of an old, old House

And strap him to the tree.”

Quo’ he, “If I were in his place,

I would refuse I ween,

And die a death upon the tree,

Than wed what I’d ne’er seen.

“Go ye, and tell our daughter Meg,

That she’s be wived the morn;

And I will to this young gallant,

And see what he perform.”

She went unto her daughter Meg,

Who had a meikle mouth;

But her teeth were pearls, and her honey breath

Was like the wind from the South.