Was he the man who made it a common thing to speak in ballads of “combing her yellow hair”? What a poet, too, was he who put that touch into “Bewick and Grahame,” where the father throws down his glove as a challenge to his son and the son stoops to pick it up, and says-- “O father, put on your glove again, The wind hath blown it from your hand.” It is one of the most delicate things, and with it the stanza in the same ballad where the father praises the son for his victory over a friend, but the son, hating the battle which would not have been fought if the fathers had not quarrelled in their wine, says-- “Father, could ye not drink your wine at home And letten me and my brother be?” And the mind of a poet is to be seen in the whole of some ballads and in every detail, as for example in the three perfect verses-- “O lang, lang may their ladies sit Wi’ their fans into their hand, Or ere they see Sir Patrick Spens Come sailing to the land. O lang, lang may the ladies stand, Wi’ their gold combs in their hair, Wailing for their ain dear lords, For they’ll see them na mair. Half-owre, half-owre to Aberdour, It’s fiftie fadom deep, And there lies guid Sir Patrick Spens, Wi’ the Scots lords at his feet.” This ballad is one peculiar to our island, and no one can seriously deny that some one of its authors was one of the greatest writers of narrative poetry that ever lived. CHAPTER XV AN OUTCAST--WILTSHIRE