Page:Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry - 1887.djvu/220

216 Come forth and weep, come forth and pray,

Grey dame and hoary swain—

All ye who have got sons to-night

Upon the faithless main."

"And wherefore, old man, should I turn?

Dost hear the merry pipe,

The harvest bugle winding

Among Scotland's cornfields ripe—

And see her dark-eyed maidens dance,

Whose willing arms alway

Are open for the merry lads

Of bonnie Allanbay?"

Full sore the old man sighed, and said,

"Go bid the mountain wind

Breathe softer, and the deep waves hear

The prayers of frail mankind,

And mar the whirlwind in his might."

His hoary head he shook,

Gazed on the youth and on the sea,

And sadder waxed his look.

"Lo! look! here comes our lovely bride!

Breathes there a wind so rude

As chafe the billows when she goes

In beauty o'er the flood—

The raven fleece that dances

On her round and swan-white neck—

The white foot that wakes music

On the smooth and shaven deck—

The white hand that goes waving thus,

As if it told the brine,

'Be gentle in your ministry,

O'er you I rule and reign'—

The eye that looks so lovely,

Yet so lofty in its sway?

Old man, the sea adores them—

So adieu, sweet Allanbay!"

"During the continuance of this song, an old gentleman of the house of Maxwell, advancing through the press to the barges, said aloud: 'A challenge, ye gallants, a challenge! Let the bridegroom take his merry mariners of England—let the bride take her mariners of old Galloway—push the barges from Preston Bay as the signal-pipe sounds; and a pipe of blood-red wine to a cupful of cold water that we reach Allanbay first.' As the old man finished his challenge hundreds of hats, and bonnets too, were thrown into the air, and the bridegroom, with a smile, took his offered hand and said: 'What! Sir Marmaduke Maxwell, wilt thou brave us too? A pipe of the richest wine to a drink of the saltest