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

39 страница из 60

“Up, up, and rise, my noble Lord,

Some plunder for to get.

“There are a swatch o’ Englishers

Coming from Carlysle town,

Well laden wi’ the yellow gold,

For Annan are they boun’.”

“Go, take a dozen o’ my men,

And brattle o’er the lea,

Lay wait, and watch until they pass

The Bowness Witches’ Tree.

“A dozen o’ ye well may lick

Three score o’ English tikes,

Take all they have, and leave them so

To tell o’ this who likes.”

Then Jock banged o’er the broomy knoll,

And reached the Witches’ Tree,

And wi’ his dozen freebooters,

Lay down on their bellie.

There came on twenty Englishers,

Wi’ cloaks and saddlebags;

There came on twenty travellers,

Mounted on goodly nags.

Came on those twenty travellers,

With long cloaks flowing down,

Came on these twenty travellers,

All thro’ the yellow broom.

Then started up Jock and his men

Wi’ such an awful yell,

Ye might have heard it at the top

Of Skiddaw or Criffell.

“Come off your nags, ye sorning crew,

Of Southron pock-puddings,

Or ye shall have the good cold steel,