“What are those books? Books of poetry
both, I will venture to wager—”
“Wrong! Both metaphysical, and dry as a
bone. Tom, light your pipe, and you, sir, lean
more at ease on your elbow; I should warn you that
the ballad is long. Patience!”
“Attention!” said the minstrel.
“Fire!” added Tom.
Kenelm began to read,—and he read well.
LORD RONALD’S
BRIDE.
“WHY gathers the crowd in the market-place
Ere the stars have yet left the sky?”
“For a holiday show and an act of grace,—
At the sunrise a witch shall die.”
“What deed has she done to deserve that
doom?
Has she blighted the standing corn,
Or rifled for philters a dead man’s
tomb,
Or rid mothers of babes new-born?”
“Her pact with the fiend was not thus
revealed,
She taught sinners the Word to hear;
The hungry she fed, and the sick she healed,
And was held as a Saint last year.
“But a holy man, who at Rome had been,
Had discovered, by book and bell,
That the marvels she wrought were through
arts unclean,
And the lies of the Prince of Hell.
“And our Mother the Church, for the dame
was rich,
And her husband was Lord of Clyde,
Would fain have been mild to this saint-like
witch
If her sins she had not denied.
“But hush, and come nearer to see the
sight,
Sheriff, halberds, and torchmen,—look!
That’s the witch standing mute in
her garb of white,
By the priest with his bell and
book.”
So the witch was consumed on the sacred
pyre,
And the priest grew in power and
pride,
And the witch left a son to succeed his
sire
In the halls and the lands of Clyde.
And the infant waxed comely and strong
and brave,
But his manhood had scarce begun,
When his vessel was launched on the northern
wave
To the shores which are near the
sun.
Lord Ronald has come to his halls in Clyde
With a bride of some unknown race;
Compared with the man who would kiss that
bride
Wallace wight were a coward base.
Her eyes had the glare of the mountain-cat
When it springs on the hunter’s
spear,
At the head of the board when that lady
sate
Hungry men could not eat for fear.
And the tones of her voice had that deadly
growl
Of the bloodhound that scents its
prey;
No storm was so dark as that lady’s
scowl
Under tresses of wintry gray.
“Lord Ronald! men marry for love or gold,
Mickle rich must have been thy bride!”
“Man’s heart may be bought, woman’s
hand be sold,
On the banks of our northern Clyde.
“My bride is, in sooth, mickle rich to
me
Though she brought not a groat in
dower,
For her face, couldst thou see it as I
do see,
Is the fairest in hall or bower!”
