TH

THE

GRAY BROTHER.

A FRAGMENT.

HE imperfect state of this ballad, which was written several years ago, is not a circumstance affected for the purpose of giving it that peculiar interest, which is often found to arise from ungratified curiosity. On the contrary, it was the author's intention to have completed the tale, if he had found himself able to succeed to his own satisfaction. Yielding to the opinion of persons, whose judgment, if not biassed by the partiality of friendship, is entitled to deference, the author has preferred inserting these verses as a fragment, to his intention of entirely suppressing them.

The tradition, upon which the tale is founded, regards a house, upon the barony of Gilmerton, near Laswade, in Mid Lothian. This building, now called Gilmertongrange, was originally named Burndale, from the following tragic adventure. The barony of Gilmerton, belonged, of yore, to a gentleman, named Heron, who had one beautiful daughter. This young lady was seduced by the abbot of Newbottle, a richly endowed abbey, upon the banks

of the South Esk, now a seat of the marquis of Lethian. Heron came to the knowledge of this circumstance, and learned, also, that the lovers carried on their guilty intercourse by the connivance of the lady's nurse, who lived at this house, of Gilmertongrange, or Burndale. He formed a resolution of bloody vengeance, undeterred by the supposed sanctity of the clerical character, or by the stronger claims of natural affection. Choosing, therefore, a dark and windy night, when the objects of his vengeance were engaged in a stolen interview, he set fire to a stack of dried thorns, and other combustibles, which he had caused to be piled against the house, and reduced to a pile of glowing ashes the dwelling, with all its inmates.*

The scene, with which the ballad opens, was suggested by the following curious passage, extracted from the life of Alexander Peden, one of the wandering and persecuted teachers of the sect of Cameronians, during the reign of Charles II. and his successor, James. This person was supposed by his followers, and, perhaps, really believed himself, to be possessed of supernatural gifts; for the wild scenes, which they frequented, and the constant dangers, which were incurred through their

*This tradition was communicated to me by John Clerk, Esq. of Eldin, author of an Essay upon Naval Tactics; who will be remembered by posterity, as having taught the genius of Britain to concentrate her thunders, and to launch them against her foes with an unerring aim.

proscription, deepened upon their minds the gloom of superstition, so general in that age.

"About the same time he (Peden) came to Andrew Normand's house, in the parish of Alloway, in the shire of Ayr, being to preach at night in his barn. After he came in, he halted a little, leaning upon a chairback, with his face covered; when he lifted up his head, he said, 'There are in this house that I have not one word of salvation unto; he halted a little again, saying, 'This is strange, that the devil will not go out, that we may begin our work!" Then there was a woman went out, ill looked upon almost all her life, and to her dying hour, for a witch, with many presumptions of the same. It escaped me, in the former passages, that John Muirhead (whom I have often mentioned) told me, that when he came from Ireland to Galloway, he was at family worship, and giving some notes upon the scripture, when a very ill looking man came, and sat down within the door, at the back of the hallan : (partition of the cottage:) immediately he halted, and said, 'There is some unhappy body just now come into this house. I charge him to go out, and not to stop my mouth!' The person went out, and he insisted, (went on,) yet he saw him neither come in nor go out."The life and prophecies of Mr. Alexander Peden, late Minister of the Gospel at New Glenluce, in Galloway, part ii. § 26.

THE

GRAY BROTHER.

THE Pope he was saying the high, high mass,

All on Saint Peter's day,

With the power to him given, by the saints in hea

ven,

To wash men's sins away.

The Pope he was saying the blessed mass,

And the people kneeled around;

And from each man's soul his sins did pass,
As he kissed the holy ground.

And all, among the crowded throng,
Was still, both limb and tongue,

While through vaulted roof, and aisles aloof,

The holy accents rung.

At the holiest word he quivered for fear,
And faltered in the sound;

And, when he would the chalice rear,
He dropped it on the ground.

"The breath of one, of evil deed, Pollutes our sacred day;