Part 15 (1/2)

And five and five like a mason gang, That carried the ladders lang and hie; And five and five like broken men, And so they reached the Woodhouselee.

- a house in Scotland, within ”a lang mile” of Netherby, in England, the seat of the Grahams, who were partial, for private reasons, to the Scottish cause. They were at deadly feud with Thomas Musgrave, Captain of Bewcastle, and Willie had married a Graham.

Now in my opinion, up to stanza xxvi., all the evasive answers given to Salkeld by each gang, till d.i.c.ky o' Dryhope (a real person) replies with a spear-thrust -

”For never a word o' lear had he,”

are not an invention of Scott's (who knew that Salkeld was not met and slain), but a fantasy of the original ballad. Here I have only familiarity with the romantic perversion of facts that marks all ballads on historical themes to guide me.

Salkeld is met -

”As we crossed the Batable land, When to the English side we held.”

The ballad does not specify the crossing of Esk, nor say that Salkeld was on the English side; nor is there any blunder in the reply of the ”mason gang” -

”We gang to harry a corbie's nest, That wons not far frae Woodhouselee.”

Whether on English or Scottish soil the masons say not, and their pretence is derisive, bitterly ironical.

Colonel Elliot makes much of the absence of mention of the Esk, and says ”it is AFTER they are in England that the false reports are spread.” {139a} But the ballad does not say so--read it! All pa.s.ses with judicious vagueness.

”As we crossed the Batable land, When to the English side we held.”

Satch.e.l.ls knows that the ladders were made at Woodhouselee; it took till nightfall to finish them. The ballad, swift and poetical, takes the ladders for granted--as a matter of fact, chronicled in the dispatches, the Grahams of Netherby harboured Buccleuch: Netherby was his base.

”I could nought have done that matter without great friends.h.i.+p of the Grames of Eske,” wrote Buccleuch, in a letter which Scrope intercepted.

{139b}

In Satch.e.l.ls, Buccleuch leaves half his men at the ”Stonish bank”

(Staneshaw bank) ”FOR FEAR THEY HAD MADE NOISE OR DIN.” An old soldier should have known better, and the ballad (his probable half-remembered source here) DOES know better -

”And there the laird garr'd leave our STEEDS, For fear that they should stamp and nie,”

and alarm the castle garrison. Each man of the post on the ford would hold two horses, and also keep the ford open for the retreat of the advanced party. The ballad gives the probable version; Satch.e.l.ls, when offering as a reason for leaving half the force, lest they should make ”noise or din,” is maundering. Colonel Elliot does not seem to perceive this obvious fact, though he does perceive Buccleuch's motive for dividing his force, ”presumably with the object of protecting his line of retreat,” and also to keep the horses out of earshot, as the ballad says. {140a}

In Satch.e.l.ls the river is ”in no great rage.” In the ballad it is ”great and meikle o' spait.” And it really was so. The MS. already cited, which Scott had not seen when he published the song, says that Buccleuch arrived at the ”Stoniebank beneath Carleile brig, the water being at the tyme, through raines that had fallen, weill thick.”

In Scott's ORIGINAL this river, he says, was the Esk, in Satch.e.l.ls it is the Eden, and Scott says he made this necessary correction in the ballad. In Satch.e.l.ls the storming party

Broke a sheet of leid on the castle top.