Chapter 14

"WHY gathers the crowd in the market-place Ere the stars have yet left the sky?" "For a holiday show and an act of grace,-- At the sunrise a witch shall die."

"What deed has she done to deserve that doom? Has she blighted the standing corn, Or rifled for philters a dead man's tomb, Or rid mothers of babes new-born?"

"Her pact with the fiend was not thus revealed, She taught sinners the Word to hear; The hungry she fed, and the sick she healed, And was held as a Saint last year.

"But a holy man, who at Rome had been, Had discovered, by book and bell, That the marvels she wrought were through arts unclean, And the lies of the Prince of Hell.

"And our Mother the Church, for the dame was rich, And her husband was Lord of Clyde, Would fain have been mild to this saint-like witch If her sins she had not denied.

"But hush, and come nearer to see the sight, Sheriff, halberds, and torchmen,--look! That's the witch standing mute in her garb of white, By the priest with his bell and book."

So the witch was consumed on the sacred pyre, And the priest grew in power and pride, And the witch left a son to succeed his sire In the halls and the lands of Clyde.

And the infant waxed comely and strong and brave, But his manhood had scarce begun, When his vessel was launched on the northern wave To the shores which are near the sun.