Chapter 51

Lord Ronald has come to his halls in Clyde With a bride of some unknown race; Compared with the man who would kiss that bride Wallace wight were a coward base.

Her eyes had the glare of the mountain-cat When it springs on the hunter’s spear, At the head of the board when that lady sate Hungry men could not eat for fear.

And the tones of her voice had that deadly growl Of the bloodhound that scents its prey; No storm was so dark as that lady’s scowl Under tresses of wintry gray.

“Lord Ronald! men marry for love or gold, Mickle rich must have been thy bride!” “Man’s heart may be bought, woman’s hand be sold, On the banks of our northern Clyde.

“My bride is, in sooth, mickle rich to me Though she brought not a groat in dower, For her face, couldst thou see it as I do see, Is the fairest in hall or bower!”

Quoth the bishop one day to our lord the king, “Satan reigns on the Clyde alway, And the taint in the blood of the witch doth cling To the child that she brought to day.

“Lord Ronald hath come from the Paynim land With a bride that appals the sight; Like his dam she hath moles on her dread right hand, And she turns to a snake at night.

“It is plain that a Scot who can blindly dote On the face of an Eastern ghoul, And a ghoul who was worth not a silver groat, Is a Scot who has lost his soul.

“It were wise to have done with this demon tree Which has teemed with such caukered fruit; Add the soil where it stands to my holy See, And consign to the flames its root.”

“Holy man!” quoth King James, and he laughed, “we know That thy tongue never wags in vain, But the Church cist is full, and the king’s is low, And the Clyde is a fair domain.

“Yet a knight that’s bewitched by a laidly fere Needs not much to dissolve the spell; We will summon the bride and the bridegroom here Be at hand with thy book and bell.”