By Various

Chosen and edited by R. Brimley Johnson Illustrated By W. C. Cooke

In Four Volumes Volume IV

1894

Original

Original

Original

CONTENTS

THE HIGH TIDE ON THE COAST OF LINCOLNSHIRE

BALLAD OF THE BRIDES OF QUAIR

FIRST LOVE

SAD MEMORIES

HOW WE BEAT THE FAVOURITE

THE MERMAID OF PADSTOW

THE HIGHWAYMAN'S GHOST

THE BROTHERS

THE BALLAD OF DEAD MEN'S BAY

THE BRIDE'S TRAGEDY

THE WITCH-MOTHER

THE SEA-SWALLOWS

THE KING'S DAUGHTER

THE BALLAD OF THE MIDNIGHT SUN

PART I.

PART II.

LITTLE WILLIE

THE BALLAD OF JUDAS ISCARIOT

PHIL BLOOD'S LEAP

THE RED THREAD OF HONOUR

TICONDEROGA

HEATHER ALE

CAPTAIN GOLD AND FRENCH JANET

SIR ELDRIC

THE MOWERS

THE TOWER OF ST MAUR

A BALLAD OF HELL

THE WEDDING OF PALE BRONWEN

THE BALLAD OF FISHER'S BOARDING-HOUSE

THE FALL OF JOCK GILLESPIE

SOLDIER, SOLDIER

BALLAD OF EAST AND WEST

THE LADY OF SEVILLA

IRISH BALLADS

THE BATTLE OF THE BOYNE

SHULE AGRA

THE NIGHT BEFORE LARRY WAS STRETCHED

THE PATRIOT MOTHER

THE LAKE OF COOLFIN

BY THAT LAKE, WHOSE GLOOMY SHORE

THE HIGH-BORN LADY

THE MAIDEN CITY

SIR TURLOUGH; OR, THE CHURCHYARD BRIDE

THE VIRGIN MARY'S BANK

CAROLAN AND BRIDGET CRUISE

THE O'KAVANAGH

THE BRIDAL OF MALAHIDE

CAOCH, THE PIPER

THE FAIRY THORN

THE BATTLE OF ARDNOCHER

FONTENOY

THE SACK OF BALTIMORE

THE BALLAD OF THE BIER THAT CONQUERED

THE BALLAD OF "BONNY PORTMORE"

A BALLAD OF SARSFIELD;

A BALLAD OF ATHLONE;

LOVE'S WARNING

THE OLD STORY

THE BROTHERS: HENRY AND JOHN SHEARS

THE WITCH-BRIDE

THE MILKMAID

THE NOBLEMAN'S WEDDING

THE MAIDS OF ELFIN-MERE

THE FAITHLESS KNIGHT

MICHAEL DWYER

RANDALL M'DONALD

THE DEMON OF THE GIBBET

KILBRANNON

THE GREEN DOVE AND THE RAVEN

MANNIX THE COINER

MY MAURIA NI MILLEÔN

THE LADYE'S ROCK

THE WRECK OFF MIZEN-HEAD

JOHNNY COX

A SONG OF THE EXMOOR HUNT

THE SONG OF THE GHOST

A SEA STORY

GEOFFREY BARRON

FATHER GILLIGAN

THE HIGH TIDE ON THE COAST OF LINCOLNSHIRE

T he old mayor climbed the belfry tower,

The ringers ran by two, by three;

"Pull, if ye never pulled before;

Good ringers, pull your best," quoth he.

"Play uppe, play uppe, O Boston bells!

Ply all your changes, all your swells,

Play uppe 'The Brides of Enderby.'"

Men say it was a stolen tyde—

The Lord that sent it, He knows all;

But in myne ears doth still abide

The message that the bells let fall:

And there was nought of strange, beside

The flights of mews and peewits pied

By millions crouched on the old sea wall.

I sat and spun within the doore,

My thread brake off, I raised myne eyes;

The level sun, like ruddy ore,

Lay sinking in the barren skies;

And dark against day's golden death

She moved where Lindis wandereth,

My sonne's faire wife, Elizabeth.

"Cusha! Cusha! Cusha!" calling,

Ere the early dews were falling,

Far re away I heard her song.

"Cusha! Cusha!" all along;

Where the reedy Lindis floweth,

Floweth, floweth,

From the meads where melick groweth

Faintly came her milking song.—

"Cusha! Cusha! Cusha!" calling,

"For the dews will soone be falling;

Leave your meadow grasses mellow,

Mellow, mellow;

Quit your cowslips, cowslips yellow;

Come uppe Whitefoot, come uppe Light-

foot;

Quit the stalks of parsley hollow,

Hollow, hollow;

Come uppe Jetty, rise and follow,

From the clovers lift your head;

Come uppe Whitefoot, come uppe Light-

foot,

Come uppe Jetty, rise and follow,

Jetty, to the milking shed,"

If it be long, aye, long ago,

When I beginne to think howe long,

Againe I hear the Lindis flow,

Swift as an arrowe, sharpe and strong;

And all the aire, it seemeth mee,

Bin full of floating bells (sayth shee),

That ring the tune of Enderby.

Alle fresh the level pasture lay,

And not a shadowe mote be seene,

Save where full fyve good miles away

The steeple towered from out the greene;

And lo! the great bell farre and wide

Was heard in all the country side

That Saturday at eventide.

The swannerds where their sedges are

Moved on in sunset's golden breath,

The shepherde lads I heard afarre,

And my sonne's wife, Elizabeth;

Till floating o'er the grassy sea

Came downe that kyndly message free,

The "Brides of Mavis Enderby."

Then some looked uppe into the sky,

And all along where Lindis flows

To where the goodly vessels lie,

And where the lordly steeple shows.

They sayde, "And why should this thing be?

What danger lowers by land or sea?

They ring the tune of Enderby!

"For evil news from Mabelthorpe,

Of pyrate galleys warping down;

For shippes ashore beyond the scorpe,

They have not spared to wake the towne:

But while the west bin red to see,

And storms be none, and pyrates flee,

Why ring 'The Brides of Enderby?'"

I looked without, and lo! my sonne

Came riding downe with might and main:

He raised a shout as he drew on,

Till all the welkin rang again,

"Elizabeth! Elizabeth!"

(A sweeter woman ne'er drew breath

Than my sonne's wife, Elizabeth).

"The olde sea wall (he cried) is downe,

The rising tide comes on apace,

And boats adrift in yonder towne

Go sailing uppe the market-place."

He shook as one that looks on death:

"God save you, mother!" straight he saith;

"Where is my wife, Elizabeth?"

"Good sonne, where Lindis winds away

With her two bairns I marked her long;

And ere yon bells beganne to play

Afar I heard her milking song."

He looked across the grassy lea,

To right, to left, "Ho Enderby!"

They rang "The Brides of Enderby!"

With that he cried and beat his breast;

For, lo! along the river's bed

A mighty eygre reared his crest,

And up the Lindis raging sped.

It swept with thunderous noises loud;

Shaped like a curling snow-white cloud,

Or like a demon in a shroud.

And rearing Lindis backward pressed,

Shook all her trembling bankes amaine;

Then madly at the eygre's breast

Flung uppe her weltering walls again.

Then bankes came downe with ruin and rout—

Then beaten foam flew round about—

Then all the mighty floods were out.

So farre, so fast the eygre drave,

The heart had hardly time to beat,

Before a shallow seething wave

Sobbed in the grasses at oure feet:

The feet had hardly time to flee

Before it brake against the knee,

And all the world was in the sea.

Upon the roofe we sate that night,

The noise of bells went sweeping by:

I marked the lofty beacon light

Stream from the church tower, red and high—

A lurid mark and dread to see;

And awsome bells they were to mee,

That in the dark rang "Enderby."

They rang the sailor lads to guide

From roofe to roofe who fearless rowed;

And I—my sonne was at my side,

And yet the ruddy beacon glowed:

And yet he moaned beneath his breath,

"O come in life, or come in death!

O lost! my love, Elizabeth."

And didst thou visit him no more?

Thou didst, thou didst, my daughter deare;

The waters laid thee at his doore,

Ere yet the early dawn was clear.

Thy pretty bairns in fast embrace,

The lifted sun shone on thy face,

Downe drifted to thy dwelling-place.

That flow strewed wrecks about the grass,

That ebbe swept out the flocks to sea;

A fatal ebbe and flow, alas!

To manye more than my ne and me:

But each will mourn his own (she saith).

And sweeter woman ne'er drew breath

Than my sonne's wife, Elizabeth.

I shall never hear her more

By the reedy Lindis shore,

"Cusha! Cusha! Cusha!" calling,

Ere the early dews be falling;

I shall never hear her song,

"Cusha! Cusha!" all along,

Where the sunny Lindis flpweth,

Goeth, floweth;

From the meads where ihelick groweth,

When the water winding down,

Onward floweth to the town.

I shall never see her more

Where the reeds and rushes quiver,

Shiver, quiver;

Stand beside the sobbing river.

Sobbing, throbbing, in its falling,

To the sandy lonesome shore;

I shall never hear her calling,

"Leave your meadow grasses mellow,

Mellow, mellow;

Quit your cowslips, cowslips yellow;

Come uppe Whitefoot, come uppe Lightfoot;

Quit your pipes of parsley hollow,

Hollow, hollow;

Come uppe Lightfoot, rise and follow;

Lightfoot, Whitefoot,

From your clovers lift the head;

Come uppe Jetty, follow, follow,

Jetty, to the milking shed."

——Jean Ingelow.

BALLAD OF THE BRIDES OF QUAIR

A stillness crept about the house,

At evenfall, in noon-tide glare;

Upon the silent hills looked forth

The many-windowed House of Quair.

The peacock on the terrace screamed;

Browsed on the lawn the timid hare;

The great trees grew i' the avenue,

Calm by the sheltered House of Quair.

The pool was still; around its brim

The alders sickened all the air;

There came no murmur from the streams,

Though nigh flowed Leithen, Tweed, and

Quair.

The days hold on their wonted pace,

And men to court and camp repair,

Their part to fill, of good or ill,

While women keep the House of Quair.

And one is clad in widow's weeds,

And one is maiden-like and fair,

And day by day they seek the paths

About the lonely fields of Quair.

To see the trout leap in the streams,

The summer clouds reflected there,

The maiden loves in pensive dreams

To hang o'er silver Tweed and Quair.

Within, in pall-black velvet clad,

Sits stately in her oaken chair—

A stately dame of ancient name—

The Mother of the House of Quair.

Her daughter broiders by her side,

With heavy drooping golden hair,

And listens to her frequent plaint,—

"I'll fare the Brides that come to Quair.

"For more than one hath lived in pine,

And more than one hath died of care,

And more than one hath sorely sinned,

Left lonely in the House of Quair.

"Alas! and ere thy father died

I had not in his heart a share,

And now—may God forfend her ill—

Thy brother brings his Bride to Quair!"

She came: they kissed her in the hall,

They kissed her on the winding stair,

They led her to her chamber high,

The fairest in the House of Quair.

They bade her from the window look,

And mark the scene how passing fair,

Among whose ways the quiet days

Would linger o'er the wife of Quair.

"'Tis fair," she said on looking forth,

"But what although 'twere bleak and

bare"—

She looked the love she did not speak,

And broke the ancient curse of Quair—

"Where'er he dwells, where'er he goes,

His dangers and his toils I share."

What need be said—she was not one

Of the ill-fated Brides of Quair!

——Isa Craig Knox.-

FIRST LOVE

O my earliest love, who, ere I number'd

Ten sweet summers, made my bosom thrill!

Will a swallow—or a swift, or some bird—

Fly to her and say, I love her still?

Say my life's a desert drear and arid,

To its one green spot I aye recur:

Never, never, although three times married—

Have I cared a jot for aught but her.

No, mine own! though early forced to leave you,

Still my heart was there where first we met;

In those "Lodgings with an ample sea-view,"

Which were, forty years ago, "To Let."

There I saw her first, our landlord's oldest

Little daughter. On a thing so fair

Thou, O Sun,—who (so they say) beholdest

Everything,—hast gazed, I tell thee, ne'er.

There she sat—so near me, yet remoter

Than a star—a blue-eyed bashful imp:

On her lap she held a happy bloater,

'Twixt her lips a yet more happy shrimp.

And I loved her, and our troth we plighted

On the morrow by the shingly shore:

In a fortnight to be disunited

By a bitter fate for evermore.

O my own, my beautiful, my blue-eyed!

To be young once more, and bite my thumb

Original

At the world and all its cares with you, I'd

Give no inconsiderable sum.

Hand in hand we tramp'd the golden seaweed,

Soon as o'er the gray cliff peep'd the dawn:

Side by side, when came the hour for tea, we'd

Crunch the mottled shrimp and hairy prawn:—

Has she wedded some gigantic shrimper,

That sweet mite with whom I loved to play?

Is she girt with babes that whine and whimper,

That bright being who was always gay?

Yes, she has at least a dozen wee things!

Yes—I see her darning corduroys,

Scouring floors, and setting out the tea-things,

For a howling herd of hungry boys,

In a home that reeks of tar and sperm-oil!

But at intervals she thinks, I know,

Of those days which we, afar from turmoil,

Spent together forty years ago.

O my earliest love, still unforgotten,

With your downcast eyes of dreamy blue!

Never, somehow, could I seem to cotton

To another as I did to you!

——C. S. Calverley.

SAD MEMORIES

They tell me I am beautiful: they praise my

silken hair,

My little feet that silently slip on from stair to

stair:

They praise my pretty trustful face and innocent

grey eye;

Fond hands caress me oftentimes, yet would

that I might die!

Why was I born to be abhorr'd of man and bird

and beast?

The bullfinch marks me stealing by, and straight

his song hath ceased;

The shrewmouse eyes me shudderingly, then

flees; and worse than that,

The housedog he flees after me—why was I

born a cat?

Men prize the heartless hound who quits dry-

eyed his native land;

Who wags a mercenary tail and licks a tyrant

hand.

The leal true cat they prize not, that if e'er

compell'd to roam

Still flies, when let out of the bag, precipitately

home.

They call me cruel. Do I know if mouse or

song-bird feels?

I only know they make me light and salutary

meals:

And if, as 'tis my nature to, ere I devour I

tease'em,

Why should a low-bred gardener's boy pursue

me with a besom?

Should china fall or chandeliers, or anything but

stocks—

Nay stocks, when they're in flowerpots—the cat

expects hard knocks:

Should ever anything be missed—milk, coals,

umbrellas, brandy—

The cat's pitch'd into with a boot or any thing

that's handy.

"I remember, I remember," how one night I

"fleeted by,"

And gain'd the blessed tiles and gazed into the

cold clear sky.

"I remember, I remember, how my little lovers

came,"

And there, beneath the crescent moon, play'd

many a little game.

They fought—by good St Catharine,'twas a

fearsome sight to see

The coal-black crest, the glowering orbs, of

one gigantic He.

Like bow by some tall bowman bent at Hastings

or Poictiers,

His huge back curved, till none observed a

vestige of his ears:

He stood, an ebon crescent, flouting that ivory

moon;

Then raised the pibroch of his race, the Song

without a Tune;

Gleam'd his white teeth, his mammoth tail waved

. darkly to and fro,

As with one complex yell he burst, all claws,

upon the foe.

It thrills me now, that final Miaow—that weird

unearthly din:

Lone maidens heard it far away, and leap'd out

of their skin.

A potboy from his den o'erhead peep'd with a

scared wan face;

Then sent a random brickbat down, which

knock'd me into space.

Nine days I fell, or thereabouts: and, had we

not nine lives,

I wis I ne'er had seen again thy sausage-shop,

St Ives!

Had I, as some cats have, nine tails, how gladly

I would lick

The hand, and person generally, of him who

heaved that brick.

For me they fill the milkbowl up, and cull the

choice sardine:

But ah! I nevermore shall be the cat I once

have been!

The memories of that fatal night they haunt me

even now:

In dreams I see that rampant He, and tremble

at that Miaow.

——C. S. Calverley.

HOW WE BEAT THE FAVOURITE

(A Lay of the Loamshire Hunt Cup.)

Aye, squire," said Stevens, "they back him

at evens;

The race is all over, bar shouting, they say;

The Clown ought to beat her; Dick Neville is

sweeter

Than ever—he swears he can win all the way.

"A gentleman rider—well, I'm an outsider,

But if he's a gent who the mischiefs a jock?

You swells mostly blunder, Dick rides for the

plunder,

He rides, too, like thunder—he sits like a

rock.

"He calls 'hunted fairly' a horse that has barely

Been stripp'd for a trot within sight of the

hounds,

A horse that at Warwick beat Birdlime and

Yorick,

And gave Abdelkader at Aintree nine pounds.

"They say we have no test to warrant a

protest;

Dick rides for a lord and stands in with a

steward;

The light of their faces they show him—his

case is

Prejudged and his verdict already secured.

"But none can outlast her, and few travel faster,

She strides in her work clean away from The

Drag;

You hold her and sit her, she couldn't be fitter,

Whenever you hit her she'll spring like a stag.

"And p'rhaps the green jacket, at odds though

they back it,

May fall, or there's no knowing what may

turn up.

The mare is quite ready, sit still and ride steady,

Keep cool; and I think you may just win the

Cup."

Dark-brown with tan muzzle, just stripped for

the tussle,

Stood Iseult, arching her neck to the curb,

A lean head and fiery, strong quarters and wiry,

A loin rather light, but a shoulder superb.

Some parting injunction, bestowed with great

unction,

I tried to recall, but forgot like a dunce,

When Reginald Murray, full tilt on White

Surrey,

Came down in a hurry to start us at once.

"Keep back in the yellow! Come up on

Othello!

Hold hard on the chesnut! Turn round on

The Drag!

Keep back there on Spartan! Back you, sir,

in tartan!

So, steady there, easy," and down went the

flag.

We started, and Kerr made strong running on

Mermaid,

Through furrows that led to the first stake-

and-bound,

The crack, half extended, look'd bloodlike and

splendid,

Held wide on the right where the headland

was sound.

I pulled hard to baffle her rush with the snaffle,

Before her two-thirds of the field got away,

All through the wet pasture where floods of the

last year

Still loitered, they clotted my crimson with

clay.

The fourth fence, a wattle, floor'd Monk and

Blue-bottle;

The Drag came to grief at the blackthorn

arid ditch,

The rails toppled over Redoubt and Red Rover,

The lane stopped Lycurgus and Leicestershire

Witch.

She passed like an arrow Kildare and Cock

Sparrow,

And Mantrap and Mermaid refused the stone

wall;

And Giles on The Greyling came down at the

paling,

And I was left sailing in front of them all.

I took them a burster, nor eased her nor nursed

her

Until the Black Bullfinch led into the plough,

And through the strong bramble we bored

with a scramble—

My cap was knock'd off by the hazel-tree

bough.

Where furrows looked lighter I drew the rein

tighter—

Her dark chest all dappled with flakes of

white foam,

Her flanks mud bespattered, a weak rail she

shattered—

We landed on turf with our heads turn'd for

home.

Then crash'd a low binder, and then close

behind her

The sward to the strokes of the favourite

shook;

His rush roused her mettle, yet ever so little

She shorten'd her stride as we raced at the

brook.

She rose when I hit her. I saw the stream

glitter,

A wide scarlet nostril flashed close to my knee,

Between sky and water The Clown came and

caught her,

The space that he cleared was a caution to see.

And forcing the running, discarding all cunning,

A length to the front went the rider in green;

A long strip of stubble, and then the big double,

Two stiff flights of rails with a quickset

between.

She raced at the rasper, I felt my knees grasp her,

I found my hands give to her strain on the

bit,

She rose when the Clown did—our silks as we

bounded

Brush'd lightly, our stirrups clash'd loud as

we lit.

A rise steeply sloping, a fence with stone

coping—

The last—we diverged round the base of the

hill;

His path was the nearer, his leap was the

clearer,

I flogg'd up the straight, and he led sitting

still.

She came to his quarter, and on still I brought

her,

And up to his girth, to his breast-plate she

drew;

A short prayer from Neville just reach'd me,

"The devil,"

He mutter'd—lock'd level the hurdles we flew.

A hum of hoarse cheering, a dense crowd

careering,

All sights seen obscurely, all shouts vaguely

heard;

"The green wins!" "The crimson!" The

multitude swims on,

And figures are blended and features are

blurr'd.

"The horse is her master!" "The green

forges past her!"

"The Clown will outlast her!" "The

Clown wins!" "The Clown!"

The white railing races with all the white faces,

The chesnut outpaces, outstretches the brown.

On still past the gateway she strains in the

straightway,

Still struggles, "The Clown by a short neck

at most,"

He swerves, the green scourges, the stand

rocks and surges,

And flashes, and verges, and flits the white

post.

Aye! so ends the tussle,—I knew the tan muzzle

Was first, though the ring-men were yelling

"Dead heat!"

A nose I could swear by, but Clarke said "The

mare by

A short head." And that's how the favourite

was beat.

——A. L. Gordon.

THE MERMAID OF PADSTOW

It is long Tom Yeo of the town of Padstow,

And he is a ne'er-do-weel:

"Ho, mates," cries he, "rejoice with me,

For I have shot a seal."

Nay, Tom, by the mass thou art but an ass,

No seal bestains this foam;

But the long wave rolls up a Mermaid's glass

And a young Mermaiden's comb.

The sun has set, the night-clouds throng,

The sea is steely grey.

They hear the dying Mermaid's song

Peal from the outer bay.

"A curse with you go, ye men of Padstow!

Ye shall not thrive or win,

Ye have seen the last ship from your haven slip,

And the last ship enter in.

"For this deed I devote you to dwell without

boat

By the skirt of the oarèd blue,

And ever be passed by sail and by mast,

And none with an errand for you."

And scarce had she spoke when the black

storm broke

With thunder and levin's might: