ficult to match:

My love he built me a bonny bower,
And clad it a' wi' lilye flower,
A brawer bower ye ne'er did see
Than my true love he built for me.

There came a man, by middle day
He spied his sport, and went away,
And brought the King that very night,
Who brake my bower and slew my knight.

He slew my knight, to me sae dear;
He slew my knight, and poin'd his gear;
My servants all for life did flee,
And left me in extremitie.

I sewed his sheet, making my mane;
I watched the corpse myself alane;
I watch'd his body night and day;
No living creature came that way.

I took his body on my back,
And whiles I gaed, and whiles I sat;
I digg'd a grave, and laid him in,
And happ'd him with the sod sae green.
But think na ye my heart was sair,
When I laid the moul' on his yellow hair;
O think na ye my heart was wae,
When I turned about away to gae?

Nae living man I'll love again,
Since that my lovely knight is slain,
Wi ae lock of his yellow hair,
I'll chain my heart for evermair.

PLATE 22

"HE PASS'D WHERE
NEWARK'S STATELY
TOWER LOOKS OUT
FROM YARROW'S
BIRCHEN BOWER"

FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH

PAINTED BY

JAMES ORROCK, R.I.

(_See pp. 116_)

[Illustration]

One might speak, too, of the "Douglas Tragedy," the scene of which is
laid in the Douglas Glen, in the heart of the quiet hills forming the
watershed betwixt Tweed and Yarrow. Here lived the "Good Sir
James"--Bruce's right-hand man, who strove to carry his heart to the
Holy Land. It was from this Tower at Blackhouse that Margaret the Fair
was carried off by her lover, and about a mile further up on the
hillside the seven stones marking the spot where Lord William alighted
and slew the Lady's seven brothers in full pursuit of the pair, are
objects of curious interest. This ballad, it is interesting to note, is
one widely diffused throughout Europe, being specially rich in Danish,
Icelandic, Norse, and Swedish collections. Indeed, almost all the Yarrow
ballads--and many others--are common to Continental _volks-lieder_, and
are found in extraordinary profusion from Iceland to the Peloponesus.
Here is evidence, by no means slight, of the theory that ballads
originate from a common stock, and that in the course of ages they have
simply become transplanted and localized. Then the Yarrow valley
contains the sce