He led the boy o'er bank and fell,
Until they came to a woodland brook;
The running stream dissolved the spell,
And his own elvish shape he took.
Could he have had his pleasure vilde,
He had crippled the joints of the noble child;
Or, with his fingers long and lean,
Had strangled him in fiendish spleen:
But his awful mother he had in dread,
And also his power was limited;
So he but scowled on the startled child,
And darted through the forest wild;
The woodland brook he bounding crossed,
And laughed, and shouted, 'Lost! lost! lost!
Full sore amazed at the wondrous change,
And frightened as a child might be,
At the wild yell and visage strange,
And the dark words of gramarye,
The child, amidst the forest bower,
Stood rooted like a lily flower;
And when at length, with trembling pace,
He sought to find where Branksome lay,
He feared to see that grisly face,
Glare from some thicket on his way.
Thus, starting oft, he journeyed on,
And deeper in the wood is gone-
For aye the more he sought his way,
The farther still he went astray-
Until he heard the mountains round
Ring to the baying of a hound.
And hark! and hark! the deep-mouthed bark Comes nigher still, and nigher:
Bursts on the path a dark bloodhound,
His tawny muzzle tracked the ground,
And his red eye shot fire.
Soon as the wildered child saw he,
He flew at him right furiouslie.
I ween you would have seen with joy
The bearing of the gallant boy,
When, worthy of his noble sire,
His wet cheek glowed 'twixt fear and ire!
He faced the bloodhound manfully,
And held his little bat on high;
So fierce he struck, the dog, afraid,
At cautious distance hoarsely bayed,
But still in act to spring;
When dashed an archer through the glade,
And when he saw the hound was stayed,
He drew his tough bowstring;
But a rough voice cried,' Shoot not, hoy!
Ho! shoot not, Edward-'Tis a boy!'
The speaker issued from the wood,
And checked his fellow's surly mood,
And quelled the bandog's ire:
He was an English yeoman good,
And born in Lancashire.
Well could he hit a fallow-deer
Five hundred feet him fro;
With hand more true, and eye more clear,
No archer bended bow.
His coal-black hair, shorn round and close,
Set off his sun-burned face:
Old England's sign, St. George's cross,
His barret-cap did grace;
His bugle-horn hung by his side,
All in a wolf-skin baldric tied;
And his short falchion, sharp and clear,
Had pierced the throat of many a deer.
His kirtle, made of forest green,
Reached scantly to his knee;
And, at his belt, of arrows keen
A furbished sheaf bore he;
His buckler scarce in breadth a span,
No larger fence had he;
He never counted him a man,
Would strike below the knee:
His slackened bow was in his hand,
And the leash, that was his bloodhound's band.
He would not do the fair child harm,
But held him with his powerful arm,
That he might neither fight nor flee;
For when the red cross spièd he,
The boy strove long and violently.
'Now by St. George,' the archer cries,
Edward, methinks we have a prize!
This boy's fair face, and courage free,
Show he is come of high degree.'
'Yes! I am come of high degree,
For I am the heir of bold Buccleuch; And, if thou dost not set me free,
False Southron, thou shalt dearly rue!
For Walter of Harden shall come with speed,
And William of Deloraine, good at need,
And every Scott, from Esk to Tweed;
And, if thou dost not let me go,
Despite thy arrows and thy bow,
I'll have thee hanged to feed the crow!'
'Gramercy, for thy goodwill, fair boy!
My mind was never set so high;
But if thou art chief of such a clan,
And art the son of such a man,
And ever comest to thy command,
Our wardens had need to keep good order;
My bow of yew to a hazel wand,
Thou 'lt make them work upon the Border. Meantime, be pleased to come with me, For good Lord Dacre shalt thou see; I think our work is well begun, When we have taken thy father's son.'
Although the child was led away,
In Branksome still he seemed to stay,
For so the dwarf his part did play;
And, in the shape of that young boy,
He wrought the castle much annoy.
The comrades of the young Buccleuch
He pinched, and beat, and overthrew ;
Nay, some of them he wellnigh slew.
He tore Dame Maudlin's silken tire,
And, as Sym Hall stood by the fire,
He lighted the match of his bandelier,
And wofully scorched the hackbuteer.
It may be hardly thought or said,
The mischief that the urchin made,
Till many of the castle guessed,
That the young baron was possessed!
Well I ween the charm he held
The noble Ladye had soon dispelled;
But she was deeply busied then
To tend the wounded Deloraine.
Much she wondered to find him lie,
On the stone threshold stretched along;
She thought some spirit of the sky
Had done the bold moss-trooper wrong,
Because, despite her precept dread,
Perchance he in the book had read;
But the broken lance in his bosom stood,
And it was earthly steel and wood.
She drew the splinter from the wound,
And with a charm she staunched the blood;
She bade the gash be cleansed and bound:
No longer by his couch she stood;
But she has ta'en the broken lance,
And washed it from the clotted gore,
And salved the splinter o'er and o'er.
William of Deloraine in trance,
Whene'er she turned it round and round,
Twisted as if she galled his wound.
Then to her maidens she did say,
That he should be whole man and sound,
Within the course of a night and day.
Full long she toiled; for she did rue
Mishap to friend so stout and true.
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