The other was a maiden in her morn; The troop moved on; and down the sunny street As in their faces flash'd the naked blades. On the shore The troopers halted; all the shining sands The persecuted, covenanted folk. But both refused the oath; "because," they said, 1 Glistering: glistening. 2 Abjuring: swearing to give up or withdraw from. "Unless with Christ's dear servants we have part, We have no part with Him." On this they took The elder Margaret, and led her out Over the sliding sands, the weedy sludge,1 And as the waves crept round her feet, she pray'd "That He would firm uphold her in their midst, Who holds them in the hollow of His hand." The tide flow'd in. And up and down the shore Turn before the tide, seek refuge in their arms But ever to her lips There came the wondrous words of life and peace: "If God be for us, who can be against?" "Who shall divide us from the love of Christ?" "Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature." From the crowd A woman's voice cried a very bitter cry, - 1 Sludge: mud, mire. 2 Provost: the magistrate or mayor. 8 Laird lord; often used for a Scottish squire or country gentleman. 4 Graham: this was not John Graham of Claverhouse but his brother, who was sheriff. 5 Bonnie: pretty. Gie1 in, gie in, my bairnie,2 dinna 3 Gie in, and tak' the oath." And so wore on the sunny ye drown, The tide flow'd in; afternoon; And every fire went out upon the hearth, And not a meal was tasted in the town that day. Her mother's voice yet sounding in her ear, They turn'd young Margaret's face towards the sea, Then Grierson With cursing vow'd that he would wait 6 The King!" "God save the King of his great grace,' She answer'd, but the oath she would not take. And still the tide flow'd in, And drove the people back and silenced them. 1 Gie in: give in, submit. 2 Bairnie: child. 8 Dinna: do not, don't. 4 The town: the town of Wigton, on Solway Firth, where this martyrdom occurred. 5 Sea-mew: a species of gull or sea-bird having white plumage. 6 Test: here meaning the oath of abjuration of the Covenant. The tide flow'd in, and rising to her knees, A flood of glory, — and the lifted face Swam in it2 till it bow'd beneath the flood, ANONYMOUS. 1 Psalm xxv. 2 Compare Tennyson's "Two Voices," "But looking upward, full of grace, THE EXECUTION OF MONTROSE.1 I. COME hither, Evan Cameron, Come, stand beside my knee- There's shouting on the mountain-side, There's war within the blast Old faces look upon me, Old forms go trooping past; 1 James Grahame, Marquis of Montrose, was born in Edinburgh in 1612. During the English Civil War between King Charles I. of England and Parliament, Montrose served at first on the side of the people, but eventually went over to the Royalists. Charles made him Marquis of Montrose and commander-in-chief of the Scottish army. He gained several victories for the crown, but was defeated by General Leslie at Philiphaugh in 1645. Montrose then went to the continent, but after the execution of Charles I. by Parliament, he returned to Scotland in 1650, and led an insurrection in behalf of Prince Charles (Charles II.). The effort failed, and the Marquis was taken prisoner and executed "with all the vindictive insult which his hereditary enemy, the Marquis of Argyle," could heap upon him. "Montrose," said an eminent French nobleman, "is the only man in the world that has ever realized to me the ideas of certain heroes, whom we now discover nowhere but in the lives of Plutarch." Professor Aytoun states that in the historical incidents recorded in the following ballad there is no element of fiction. "It may," he says, "be considered as a narrative related by an aged Highlander who had followed Montrose through his campaigns, to his grandson-Evan Cameron." 2 Pibroch: the battle-music of the bagpipe. |