to sentences, by
the brothers as they stand by the bedside of their 'ae sister,' with
'torches burning bright':

'Out and spake the first o' them,
"I wot that they are lovers dear";
And out and spake the second o' them,
"They 've been in love this mony a year";

And out and spake the third o' them,
"His father had nae mair than he."'

And so until the seventh--the Rashleigh of the band--who spake no word,
but let his 'bright brown brand' speak for him. What follows rises to
the extreme height of the balladist's art; literature might be
challenged for anything surpassing it in simplicity and power, in the
mingling of horror and pathos:

'Clerk Saunders he started and Margaret she turned,
Into his arms as asleep she lay;
And sad and silent was the night
That was atween the twae.

And they lay still and sleeped sound,
Until the day began to daw,
And softly unto him she said,
"It 's time, true love, you were awa'."

But he lay still and sleeped sound,
Albeit the sun began to sheen;
She looked atween her and the wa',
And dull and drumlie were his een.'

In the majority of ballads of the _Clerk Saunders_ class there is some
base agent who betrays trust and brings death upon the lovers. 'Fause
Foodrage' takes many forms in these ancient tales without changing type.
He is the slayer of 'Lily Flower' in _Jellon Graeme_; and the boy whom
he has preserved and brought up sends the arrow singing to his guilty
heart. Lammiken, the 'bloodthirsty mason,' who must have a life for his
wage, is another enemy within the house who finds his way through
'steekit yetts'; and he is assisted by the 'fause nourice.' In other
ballads it is the 'kitchen-boy,' the 'little foot-page,' the 'churlish
carle,' or the bower-woman who plays the spy and tale-bearer. In
_Glenkindie_, 'Gib, his man,' is the vile betrayer of the noble harper
and his lady. Sometimes, as in _Gude Wallace_, _Earl Richard_, and _Sir
James the Rose_, it is the 'light leman' who plays traitor. But she
quickly repents, and meets her fate in the fire or at the sword's point,
in 'Clyde Water' or in 'the dowie den in the Lawlands o' Balleichan.' In
_Gil Morice_, that ballad which Gray thought 'divine,' it is 'Willie,
the bonnie boy,' whom the hero trusted with his message, that in malice
and wilfulness brings about the tremendous catastrophe of the tale. He
calls aloud in hall the wo