Page:Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry - 1887.djvu/66

62 would I be could I credit the tale that our house would hold up its head again, high and lordly. But I have too strong faith in minstrel prediction, and in the dreams and visions of the night, to give credence to such a pleasant thought. It was not for nought that horsemen rode in ranks on Soutraside last night, where living horseman could never urge a steed, and that the forms and semblances of living men were visible to me in this fearful procession. Nor was it for nought that my grandfather, old minstrel Harberson, caused himself to be carried in his last hour to the summit of Lanercost Hill, that he might die looking on the broad domains of his master. His harp—for his harp and he were never parted—his harp yielded involuntary sounds, and his tongue uttered unwilling words—words of sad import, the fulfilment of which is at hand. I shall repeat you the words: they are known but to few, and have been scorned too much by the noble race of Selby:

These are the words of my ancestor—what must be must. I shall meet thee again at the gates of Preston. As he uttered these words he mingled with the ranks of horsemen under the banner of a Border knight, and I rode up to the side of my cousin and his companion.

"It is not my wish to relate all I heard and describe all I saw on our way southward; but our array was a sight worth seeing, and a sight we shall never see again; for war is now become a trade, and men are trained to battle like hounds to the hunting. In those days the noble and the gentle, each with his own banner, with kinsmen and retainers, came forth to battle; and war seemed more a chivalrous effort than it seems now, when the land commits its fame and its existence to men hired by sound of trumpet and by beat of drum. It was soon broad daylight; all the adherents of the house of Stuart had moved towards Lancashire, from the south of