power
to live and to please from other sources besides the mere zest for
fighting. In distinction, as we shall see from the typical Border War
Lay, in which woman, if her presence is felt at all, is kept in the
background, as looker-on or rewarder of the fight, in such Northern
tales of raid and spulzie as _The Baron of Bracklay_, _Edom o' Gordon_,
_The Bonnie House o' Airlie_, or even _The Burning o' Frendraught_, she
is brought into the heart of the scene and forms an abiding and
controlling influence.

In a word, these are at least as much Romantic as Historical Ballads. We
suspect that woman's guile and treachery are at work, as soon as we hear
the taunting words of Bracklay's lady:

'O rise, my bauld Baron,
And turn back your kye,
For the lads o' Drumwharron
Are driving them bye.'

We are made sure of it, when the minstrel tells us:

'There was grief in the kitchen
But mirth in the ha';
But the Baron o' Bracklay
Is dead and awa'.'

And in the assault on the 'House o' the Rhodes,' it is not the wild work
of the Gordons on which our thoughts are fixed; it is not even on the
Forbeses, riding hard and fast to be in time for rescue:

'Put on, put on, my michty men,
As fast as ye can drie;
For he that 's hindmost o' my men
Will ne'er get good o' me.'

It is 'the bonnie face that lies on the grass,' and Lady Ogilvie, and
not her lord or the 'gleyed Argyll,' is central figure of the tale of
the raid of the Campbells against their hereditary foes in Angus.

As a rule, in those ballads of the Borders whose business is with foray
and reprisal, we have none of this disturbing element. The sheer love of
adventure, the chance of exchanging 'hard dunts' with the Englishmen, is
inducement enough for us to follow the lead of the Douglas or Buccleuch
across the Waste of Bewcastle or through the wilds of Kidland. The women
folks are safe and well defended in the peel-towers, from whence, when
the word has gone out to 'warn the water speedilie,' the bale-fires
flash up the dales from water-foot to well-e'e, and set the hill-crests
aflame with the news of the enemy's coming. They may have given the hint
of a toom larder by serving a dish of spurs on the board. They will be
the first to welcome home the warden's men or the moss-troopers if they
return with full hands, or to rally them if they have brought nothing
back but broken heads. But keeping or breaking the