Ballads; Great Britain -- History; Scotland -- History
Woe and woe and lamentation!
What a piteous cry was there!
Widows, maidens, mothers, children,
Shrieking, sobbing in despair!
Through the streets the death-word rushes,
Spreading terror, sweeping on.
"Jesu Christ! our King has fallen—
O Great God, King James is gone!
Holy mother Mary, shield us,
Thou who erst did lose thy Son!
O the blackest day for Scotland
That she ever knew before!
O our King—the good, the noble,
Shall we see him never more?
Woe to us, and woe to Scotland!
O our sons, our sons and men!
Surely some have ’scaped the Southron,
Surely some will come again!"
Randolph Murray describes how the monarch lies dead on the field with
his nobles round him.
"All so thick they lay together,
When the stars lit up the sky,
That I knew not who were stricken,
Or who yet remained to die."
A hollow knell is rung and the miserere is sung, and all is terror and
disorder until the Provost rouses them.
"If our King be taken from us,
We are left to guard his son.
* * * * *
Up! and haste ye through the city,
Stir the burghers stout and true!
Gather all our scattered people,
Fling the banner out once more—
Randolph Murray! do thou bear it,
As it erst was borne before:
Never Scottish heart will leave it,
When they see their monarch’s gore!"
*Chapter XXI*
*Graeme and Bewick*
Good Lord Graeme and Sir Robert Bewick were friends. They met one day
in Carlisle, and went arm in arm to the wine, and, as was too oft the
custom of these days, they stayed and drank till they were both merry.
Good Lord Graeme took up the cup. "Sir Robert, and here’s to thee!" he
said, "and here’s to our two sons at home, for they like us best in our
own country."
"O were your son a lad like mine," answered Bewick, boastfully, "and
learnt some books that he could read, they might be two brothers in
arms, and lord it over the Borderside.
’But your son’s a lad, and he’s but bad,
And billie[#] to my son he cannot be.’
[#] Comrade, or brother-in-arms.
You sent him to school, and he would not learn; you bought him books,
and he would not read!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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