Or the knight comes himself to the bower door at witching and untimely hours--at 'the to-fa' o' the nicht,' or at the crowing of the 'red red cock'--and 'tirles at the pin.' But always treachery, in the shape of envious step-dame, angry brother, or false squire, is watching and listening. Six perils may go past, but the seventh is sure to strike its mark. Even should the course of true love run smoothly almost to the church door, something is sure to happen. Love is hot and swift as flame in the ballads, although it does not waste itself in honeyed phrases. It is quick to take offence; and at a hasty word the lovers start apart, 'Lord Thomas spoke a word in jest, Fair Annet took it ill.' But more often the bolt comes out of the blue from another and jealous hand. The bride sets out richly apparelled and caparisoned to the tryst with the bridegroom. Her girdle is of gold and her skirts of the cramoisie. Four-and-twenty comely knights ride at her side, and four-and-twenty fair maidens in her train. The very hoofs of her steed are 'shod in front with the yellow gold and wi' siller shod behind.' To every teat of his mane is hung a silver bell, and, 'At every tift o' the norland win' They tinkle ane by ane.' If the voyage is by sea, 'The masts are a' o' the beaten gold And the sails o' the taffetie.' The old minstrel loved to linger over and repeat these details, and his audience, we may feel sure, never tired of hearing them. But they knew that calamity was coming, and would overtake bride and groom before they had gone, by sea or land, 'A league, a league, A league, but barely three.' It might be in the shape of storm or flood. One ballad opens: 'Annan Water 's runnin' deep, And my love Annie 's wondrous bonnie,' and afar off we see what is going to happen. But greater danger than from salt sea wave or 'frush saugh bush' is to be apprehended from the poisoned cup of the slighted rival or the dagger of the jealous brother. The knight had perhaps forgotten when he came courting his love to 'spier at her brither John'; and when she stoops from horseback to kiss this sinister kinsman at parting, he thrusts his sword into her heart. The rosy face of the bride is wan, and her white bodice is full of blood when the gay bridegroom greets her, and he is left 'tearing his yellow hair.' More often, death itself does not sunder these lovers dear: 'Lady Margaret was dead lang e'er midnicht, And Lord William lang e'er day.' And when they are buried, there springs up from their graves, as has happened in all the ballad lore and _maerchen_ of all the Aryan nations: 'Out of the one a bonnie rose bush, And out o' the other a brier,' that 'met and pleat' in a true lovers' knot in emblem of the immortality of love, as love was in the olden time.