The Balladists Part 9

Like Sir Lancelot, in the famous eulogy of Sir Ector, these Borderers of old were not only strong men of their hands, but strong also of heart, and 'true friends to their friends,' who, since they held the first line of defence of the Kingdom, might be said to embrace, after their own family and clan, their countrymen at large. They might, on occasion, 'seek their broth in England and in Scotland both.' But they robbed and slew, when it was possible, with patriotic discrimination. In _Johnie Armstrong_ and _The Sang o' the Outlaw Murray_ the heroes take credit for their 'honesty' and for their services to their country. The former boasts that 'never a Scots wife could have said that e'er I skaithed her ae puir flee'; and the other that he had won Ettrick Forest from the Southron without help from king or n.o.ble. Yet the quarrel of both is with the Scottish sovereign, who has come South intent on the exemplary and kingly work of 'making the rash bush keep the cow'; and, stranger still, it is for the bold-spoken outlaws, and not for the legitimate guardian of Border peace, that the minstrel engages our sympathies.

If we may credit the surmises of Mr. P. Macgregor Chalmers, the Outlaw Murray is none other than the 'John Morvo,' the builder who has set an admirable mark of his own upon Melrose Abbey and other ecclesiastical fanes, and, as Sheriff of the Forest, built Newark Castle after he had, in jest or earnest, defied the authority of his patron, King James IV.; perhaps he was even the writer of the ballad. This is a pretty strong order on our faith; although it must be confessed that there is a singular mixture, in this fine old lay, of information on architecture, venerie, and local owners.h.i.+p of land; and the Outlaw is made to have all the best of the combat of wits and words, and of the bargain with which it ends. 'Name your lands,' cries the King, 'where'er they lie, and here I render them to thee'; and the Outlaw promptly responds:

'"Fair Philiphaugh is mine by right, And Lewinshope still mine shall be, Newark, Fouls.h.i.+els, and Tinnis baith, My bow and arrow purchased me.

And I have native steads to me, And some by name I do not knaw; The Hangingshaw and Newark Lee, And mony mair in the Forest shaw."'

Very different was the guerdon which Johnie Armstrong of Gilnockie got from King James the Fifth, when, in an evil hour, he came with a gallant company from his stronghold in Eskdale to meet that monarch, who had ridden with a strong force into the heart of the moss-troopers' country, intent on taming the marchmen. Well might the ladies 'look from their loft windows,' and sigh, 'G.o.d bring our men weel hame again!' as Johnie, and the six-and-thirty Armstrongs and Elliots in his train, ran their horses through Langholm howm in their haste to welcome their 'lawful king.' This expedition of 1529 has left its mark on ballad poetry as well as history; through the hanging of c.o.c.kburn of Henderland it gave occasion for the _Lament of the Border Widow_. But no incident in it made deeper impression on the popular memory--none seems to have caused more sorrow and reprobation--than the stringing up of the Laird of Gilnockie and his followers on the trees at Carlenrig, at the head of Teviot. A 'Johnie Armstrong's Dance' was popular when the _Complaynt of Scotland_ was written twenty years later; and Sir David Lyndsay, in one of his plays, makes his Pardoner hawk about, among his relics of saints, the cords of good hemp that hanged the unlucky laird of Gilnockie Hall, with the commendation that

'Wha'ever beis hangit in this cord Neidis never to be drowned.'

At the bar of judgment of the balladists, the deed was counted murder:

'Scotland's heart was ne'er sae wae To see sae mony brave men die';

and murder all the less pardonable, since the king who ordered it was himself an inspirer and, as some say, a writer of ballads. As is pointed out in the _Border Minstrelsy_, the ballad, in its account of the interview between the king and his troublesome subject, follows pretty closely the narrative of Pitscottie. 'What wants that knave that a king should have?' was the offended remark of James, when he saw the band approaching him in the bravery of their war-gear. And Johnie, when all his appeals and bribes proved to be vain, could also speak a frank word:

'"To seek het water beneath cauld ice, Surely it is a great follie; I have asked grace at a graceless face, But there is nane for my men and me."'

Whatever their misdeeds, Gilnockie and his men had certainly hard measure and short shrift. The king's courtiers, it is alleged, incited him to make a summary end of the Armstrongs; and he had not the biting answer ready which his father is said to have given to the 'keen laird of Buccleuch,' when that Border chieftain urged him to 'braid on with fire and sword' against the Outlaw of Ettrick Forest:

'Now haud thy tongue, Sir Walter Scott, Nor speak of reif or felonie; For had every honest man his coo, A right puir clan thy name would be.'

But when their own clan or dependants made appeal for help or vengeance, none were more prompt with the strong word and deed than the Scotts--witness, _Kinmont Willie_; witness also, _Jamie Telfer o' the Fair Dodhead_. When Jamie ran hot-foot to Branksome Hall with the news that the Captain of Bewcastle had ramshackled his house and driven his gear and stock, until

'There was naught left in the Fair Dodhead But a greeting wife and bairnies three,'

did not Buccleuch start up like an old roused lion?

'"Gar warn the water, braid and wide, Gar warn it soon and hastilie!

They that winna ride for Telfer's kye, Let them never look on the face o' me!"'

And the chase goes on, from the Dodhead on the Ettrick until, at the fords of the Liddel, the enemy are brought to bay; and we have the fine picture of Auld Wat of Harden, the husband of the 'Flower of Yarrow,'

and a forebear of the author of _Waverley_, as he 'grat for very rage'

when Willie Scott, the son of his chief, lay slain by an English stroke:

'But he 's ta'en aff his good steel cap, And thrice he 's waved it in the air.

The Dinley's snaw was ne'er mair white Than the lyart locks of Harden's hair.'

Vain was the offer by the Bewcastle raiders to men in such mood to take back the cattle that had been lifted:

'When they cam' to the Fair Dodhead, They were a welcome sight to see!

For instead of his ain ten milk-kye, Jamie Telfer has gotten thirty-and-three.'

_Auld Maitland_ treats of an inroad on the opposite side of the country, of more ancient date and more formidable character. Its hero appears to have been a progenitor of that line of Lethington in East Lothian, and of Thirlstane, in Lauderdale, who, planted firmly on both sides of Lammermuir, produced in after-times warriors, statesmen, and even poets of note. Gavin Douglas places Maitland, with the 'auld beird grey,'

among the legendary inmates of his 'Palace of Honour'; and Scott identifies him as a Sir Richard de Mautlant who, in the latter half of the thirteenth century, and probably during the Wars of Independence, held the ancestral lands by Leaderside, on the track of invading armies crossing the Tweed between Coldstream and Melrose, and holding in to Lothian by Soultra Hill. Accordingly, the ballad tells us that the English army, under King Edward, a.s.sembled on the Tyne:

'They lighted on the banks of Tweed, And blew their fires so het, And fired the Merse and Teviotdale All in an evening late.

As they flared up o'er Lammermuir They burned baith up and down, Until they came to a darksome house, Some call it Lauder town.'

Many a foray from the same direction followed the same gait, their coming heralded by the bale-fires that flashed the signal from Hume Castle to Edgarhope (wrongly identified by Professor Veitch with Edgerston on Jed Water), and from Edgarhope to Soultra Edge. But memorable above all other Border raids recorded in song or story, is that encounter in which 'the Douglas and the Percy met,' and which has inspired perhaps the very finest of the historical ballads of each country. Moot points there are of locality, date, and circ.u.mstances; but it is generally accepted that the rhyme known for many centuries in Scotland as _The Battle of Otterburn_, and the English _Chevy Chase_ are versions, from opposite sides, of one event--a skirmish fought in the autumn of 1388 on Rede Water, between a band of Scots, under James, Earl of Douglas, returning home laden with spoil, and a body of English, led by Hotspur, the son of the Earl of Northumberland, in which Douglas was slain and young Harry Percy taken prisoner. It were as hard to decide between the merits of these famous old lays as to award the prize for prowess between the respective champions. But it may be noted, as a fine Borderer's trait, that each of the two ballads does full justice to the chivalry and fighting mettle of the enemy. It is to be observed also that they are different poems, and not merely versions of the same; and that _The Battle of Otterburn_ and the other racy and vigorous ballads of its cla.s.s dealt with in this chapter, are of themselves sufficient to refute the arrogant dictum of Mr. Carew Hazlitt, that Scotland has no original ballad-poetry to speak of, and that what she calls her own are 'chiefly English ballads, sprinkled with Northern provincialisms.'

But while they are, as Scott says, different in essentials, the English and Scottish ballads have exchanged phrases and even verses, as the English and Scottish warriors exchanged strokes, and these of the best:

'When Percy wi' the Douglas met, I wat they were full fain; They swakked their swords till sair they swet, And the blood ran doon like rain,'

may lack some of the picturesqueness of the corresponding pa.s.sage of _Chevy Chase_. But nothing, at least in Scottish eyes, can surpa.s.s the simple majesty and pathos of the last words of Douglas--words that sound all the sadder since Walter Scott repeated them, when he also had almost fought his last battle and was wounded unto death:

'"My nephew good," the Douglas said, "What recks the death o' ane?

Last night I dreamed a dreary dream, And I ken the day 's thy ain.

"My wound is deep, I fain would sleep; Take thou the vanward o' the three, And hide me by the bracken bush That grows upon the lily lee.

"O bury me by the bracken bush, Beneath the blooming brier; Let never living mortal ken A kindly Scot lies here."'

The Historical Ballad of Border chivalry touches its highest and strongest note in these words; they will stand, like Tantallon, proof against the tooth of Time as long as Scotland has a heart to feel and ears to hear.

CHAPTER VII

CONCLUSION

Though long on Time's dark whirlpool tossed, The song is saved; the bard is lost.

_The Ettrick Shepherd._

Ballad poetry is a phrase of elastic and variable meaning. In the national repertory there are Ballads Satirical, Polemical, and Political, and even Devotional and Doctrinal, of as early date as many of the songs inspired by the spirit of Love, War, and Romance. Among them they represent the diverse strands that are blended in the Scottish character--the sombre and the bright; the prose and the poetry. The one or the other has predominated in the expression of the genius of the nation in verse, according to the circ.u.mstances and mood of the time.

But neither has ever been really absent; they are the opposite sides of the same s.h.i.+eld. It is not proposed to enter here into the ballad literature of the didactic type--the 'ballads with a purpose'--either by way of characterisation or example. In further distinction from the authors of the specimens of old popular song, the writers of many or most of them are known to us, at least by name, and are among the most honoured and familiar in our literature.

Towards the unlettered bards of the traditional ballads, who 'saved other names, but left their own unsung,' the more serious and self-conscious race of poets who wrote satire and allegory and homily on the same model have generally thought themselves ent.i.tled to a.s.sume an att.i.tude of superiority and even of disapproval. The verse of those self-taught rhymers was rude and simple, and wanting in those conventional ornaments, borrowed from cla.s.sic or other sources, which for the time being were the recognised hallmarks of poesy; the moral lessons it taught were not apparent, nor even discoverable. It is curious to note how early this tone of reprobation, of contempt, or at best of kindly condescension on the part of the official priesthood of letters towards the humble tribe of balladists a.s.serts itself, and how long it endures.

Even Edmund Spenser, as quoted by Scott in the _Minstrelsy_, reproves the Irish bards and rhymsters, as he might have done their Scottish brethren, because 'for little reward or the share of a stolen cow' they 'seldom use to choose the doings of good men for the arguments of their poems,' but, on the contrary, those of such men as live 'lawlessly and licentiously upon stealths and spoyles,' whom they praise to the people, and set up as an example to young men. A poetaster of the beginning of the seventeenth century prays his printer that his book 'be not with your Ballads mixt,' and that 'it come not brought on pedlars' backs to common Fairs'--a prayer fulfilled to the letter. And down even to our own century, a host of collectors, adaptors, and imitators have spoken patronisingly of the elder ballads, and foisted on them additions and ornaments that have not always or often been improvements.

The whirligig of time has brought in its revenges; and the final judgment pa.s.sed by posterity upon the respective claims of the formal verse and the 'unpremeditated lay' of earlier centuries, has in large measure reversed that of the age in which they were born. The former, and particularly where it undertook to scourge the vices, the heresies, and the follies of the period, lacks entirely that air of simplicity and spontaneity--that 'wild-warlock' lilt, that 'wild happiness of thought and expression'--which, in the phrase of Robert Burns, marks 'our native manner and language' in ballad poetry certainly not less than in lyrical song. The laureated bard, honoured of the Court and blessed by the Church, is deposed from his pride of place, in the affections and remembrance of the people at least, while the chant of the unknown minstrel of 'the hedgerow and the field' goes sounding on in deeper and widening volume through the great heart of the race, and is hailed as the one true ballad voice.

Among the subjects which the Moral and Satirical Ballad selected for censure were, it will be seen, the themes and the heroes of the humble broadsheets sung at the common fairs and carried in the pedlar's pack.

Nor are we to wonder at this. Much of the contents of that pack is better forgotten. Much even of what has been preserved might have been allowed to drop into oblivion, without loss to posterity and with gain to the character and reputation of the 'good old times.' The balladists--those of the early broadsheets at least--could be gross on occasion; although, it must be owned, not more gross than the dramatists of Elizabethan and Restoration times, and even the novelists of last century, sometimes deigned to be. In particular, they made the mistake, of venerable date and not quite unknown to this day, of confounding humour with coa.r.s.eness. A humorous ballad is usually a thing to be fingered gingerly. Yet, although (partly for the reason hinted at) humour has been said not to be a strongly marked element of the flower of our ballad poetry, there are many of the best of them that have imbedded in them a rich and genuine vein of comic wit or broad fun; and there are also what may be cla.s.sed as Humorous Ballads proper (or improper as the case may be), which reflect more plainly and frankly, perhaps, than any other department of our literature, the customs, character, and amus.e.m.e.nts of the commonalty, and have exercised an important influence on the national poets and poetry of a later day.

Of the blending of the humorous with the romantic, an excellent example is found in the ballad of _Earl Richard and the Carl's Daughter_. The Princess, disguised in beggar's duds, keeps on the hook the deluded and disgusted knight, who has unwillingly taken her up behind him, and with wilful and lively wit draws for him pictures of the squalid home and fare with which she is familiar, until it is her good time and pleasure to undeceive him:

'She said, "Good-e'en, ye nettles tall, Where ye grow at the d.y.k.e; If the auld carline my mother was here Sae weel 's she wad ye pike.

How she wad stap ye in her poke, I wot she wadna fail; And boil ye in her auld bra.s.s pan, And o' ye mak' good kail."