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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And stole my cows from my land.

“But I’ll give ye a chance for life,

For all ye have said of me,

Either to marry my daughter Meg,

Or hang upon yonder tree.

“And the boldest Scott on the Border March,

Shall never take ye down,

Until your skeleton is seen

And ye drop away bone by bone.”

“And ye would spare my life,” he said,

“For all ye come so gleg,

If I would stoop and give my hand

To your bonny daughter Meg?

“Ye are the Murray of Elibank,

I Scott of Oakwood Tower,

I would not marry your daughter Meg,

Tho’ a kingdom were her dower;

“But little I fear to meet my death,

As I do to tell you this;

An ye had fallen in my hands,

Such were your fate, I wiss.

“Ye think that your winsome daughter Meg,”

Oh! he spoke so scornfully,—

“Will get a husband at the last,

But, faith, my lad, ye lie,

“I rather choose upon the gallows

To render up my breath;

I trow there will be Scots enough

Left to revenge my death.”

“There is my thumb, thou young braggart,”

Sir Gideon chafing cried,

“I wouldn’t hinder ye your choice