Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume XXIV Part 14

All was joyful--all delectation, In creatures who prayed to their Maker each morn, That there was to be a grand incremation Of a poor fellow-creature, old, weary, and worn.

All pity is drowned in a wild devotion, A grim savage joy within every breast; The streets are all in a buzzing commotion, Expectant of this worse than cannibal feast.

From the provost down to the gaberlunzie, From fat Mess John to half-fed Bill, From h.o.a.ry grand-dad to larking loonie, From silken-clad dame to scullion Nell; The oldest, the youngest, the richest, the poorest, The milky-breasted, the barren, the yeld, The hardest, the softest, the blithest, the dourest, Are all by the same wild pa.s.sion impelled.

If her skin it is wrinkled--ah, G.o.d forefend her!

The wild lapping flame will soon make it shrink; If her eyes are dim and rheumy and tender, The adder-tongued flames will soon make her wink.

If brown now her b.r.e.a.s.t.s--once globes of beauty!

The roasting will char them into a black heap; If trembling her limbs, the p.r.i.c.kers' loved duty Will be to compel her to dance and to leap.

The harlequin Man has doffed his jacket, No pity to feel--he has none to give; The Bible has said it, and so thou must take it, "Thou shalt not allow a witch to live."

IV.

On the long red sands of old Dundee, Out at the hem of the ebbing sea, They have fixed a long pole deep in the sand, And around it have piled with deftly hand The rosined staves of the Noraway wood, Four feet high and four feet broad, To burn, amidst flames of burning pitch, So rare a chimera yclept a witch-- Born of a fancy wild and camstary, Like ghost or ghoul, brownie or fairy.

The p.r.i.c.kers are there, each with long-p.r.o.nged fork, Yearning and yape for their h.e.l.lish work, And the priests and friars, black, white, or grey, All ready to preach the black devil away.

Yea, devils are there, more than they opine.

Even one under every gabardine; And there is a crowd of every degree: The urchins, all laughing with mirth and glee; And pipers and jangleurs might there be seen, And c.u.mmers and mummers in red and green, All cheery and merry and void of care, As if they were going to Rumbollow Fair.

V.

Ho! yonder comes from the emptying town A crowd of five thousand all rushing down; They hurry, they scurry, they buzz, they brize, And all to see this witch in a blaze.

Deep in the midst of the jubilant throng A harmless woman is hurried along,-- She is weary, and wheezing for lack of breath, And o'er all her face is the pallor of death; And she says, as they push her, in grim despair, "Ye needna hurry yoursel's sae sair-- Nae sport there will be till I am there."[A]

[Footnote A: These words are the old tradition which has been handed down in Dundee for generations.]

VI.

They have doffed her clothes till all but stark; They have tied her with ropes in her cutty sark; They have torn the snood from her silvery hair, And her locks they fall on her shoulders bare, Or stream in the cold and piercing breeze Blowing muggy and moist from the eastern seas.

Hush! silence is over all that crowd, Then an echoing shout both long and loud; The f.a.gots flare up with a lurid glare-- In the middle shines bright that white figure there, Like those sad spirits of endless woe 'Midst eternal fires in the shades below!

There lances and glances each long-p.r.o.nged fork,[A]

As through the wild flames it is quick at work, Till the red blood squirts and seethes and sings, As through the red flame each squirtlet springs, The flames lap round her like forked levin; The priests send up their prayers to heaven; But what these prayers are to do when there, It is likely they could not themselves declare Yet all this while, in her agony, She made no murmur, she uttered no cry, As if she would show by a silent ban Her scorn of the great wise creature Man.

Lo! the pole breaks over with creaking crash, The body falls down in the flaming ma.s.s; Up a cloud of sparks with a flesh-burnt smell Rises and swirls like vomit of h.e.l.l.

[Footnote A: There is in the records of the town the account of the expenses attending the execution, and the sums in Scots money paid for the tar barrels, and for p.r.i.c.kers' fees, etc.]

VII.

There's a ship in the Tay on the rising tide-- She has come that day from a distant land; The captain stands there the helm beside, A telescope holding in his left hand.

"What, ho! my lads," he loudly exclaims, "Yonder's a fire on the hem of the sea-- It is some good ship that is there in flames: Good faith! and it blazes right merrily."

And there is a boat comes from the pier, And it comes and comes still nigher and nigher-- "What is the ship that is burning there?"

"No ship, sir, it is that is yonder on fire, But a pile of burning barrels of pitch, On which all, amidst a deafening cheer, They are burning an old woman for a witch; _And the woman she is thy mother dear_."

Then Captain Jamphray silent stood, And a sad and sorrowful man was he; He turned the helm in a gloomy mood-- "Farewell for ever to Bonnie Dundee."

And away and away to the Spanish Main, Where he turned a jolly buccaneer; And he has ta'en "Yeaman," his mother's name-- A name which he held for ever dear.

VIII.

When twenty long years had come and gone, He was laden with Spanish golden prey; And he yearned and sighed for his native home, Then turned his prow for the rolling Tay; And he has bought all, for a handsome fee, On its bonnie banks where the trees are tall-- The lordly lands of old Murie,[A]

Where he built for himself a n.o.ble hall; And long, long down till a recent time, There dwelt the Yeaman's honoured line.

[Footnote A: This tradition has always been in the Yeaman family, and very likely to be true, for the reason that an origin not gratifying to the pride of an old house would not have been accepted on the dubious authority of hearsay.]

XV.

THE BALLAD OF BALLOGIE'S DAUGHTERS.

There were four fair maids in Ballogie Hall, Not all so sweet as honey; But Lillyfair was the flower of them all-- So gentle, so kind, and so bonnie.

And why was it that Ballogie's dame Was so fond of her Lillyfair?

It was not by reason she bore her name, Nor yet for her love and care.

It was that she long had cherished a dream Of a face which she once held dear, Ere yet she had bent to Ballogie's claim, Whom she married through force and fear.

That image unsought--all by fancy wrought-- Had been fixed upon Lillyfair, And to her had gi'en her bonnie blue een, As well as her golden hair.

Yet the dame was true to her bridal vow, Though sairly she would mourn, As she wandered in moods through Ballogie woods, And down by Ballogie Burn.

And why did these three sisters all Hate their kind sister so sair?

When gallants came to Ballogie Hall They sought aye Lilly fair.

But Ballogie swore by the heavens so hie, And eke by the Holy Rood, There was not in all Lillyfair's bodie Ane drap of Ballogie's blood.

And he whispered words into Sibyl's ear, Which sweetly unto her came, That he wouldna care tho' Lillyfair Were dooked in Ballogie dam.

And Sibyl she whispered to Christobel, And she into Mildred's ear; But what that was no tongue might tell, For there was none to hear.

"What makes ye laugh?" cries Lillyfair, As she comes tripping ben; "Oh do come tell, dear Christobel, For I am fidging fain."

"Oh this is the night, my sister dear.

When the wind is low and loun, That we are to go in a merry row To see the eclipse of the moon.

"And thou'lt go with us, Lillyfair, And see this goodly show-- The moon in the meer reflected clear, With the shadow upon her brow."

"Oh yes, I will go," Lillyfair rejoined; And glad in her heart was she, For seldom before had her sisters deigned To give her their companie.