Page:Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry - 1887.djvu/75

Rh Wail all for Walter Selby,

Let your tears come dropping down;

Wail all for my young warrior,

In cottage, tower, and town.

Cursed be the hand that fired the shot,

And may it never know

What beauty it has blighted,

And what glory it laid low!

Shall some rude peasant sit and sing

How his rude hand could tame

Thy pride, my Walter Selby,

And the last of all thy name?

And mourn too, all ye minstrels good,

And make your harp-strings wail,

And pour his worth through every song,

His deeds through every tale.

His life was brief, but wondrous bright:

Awake your minstrel story!

Lo! there the noble warrior lies,

So give him all his glory.

When Skiddaw lays its head as low

As now 'tis green and high,

And the Solway sea grows to a brook,

Now sweeping proudly by;

When the soldier scorns the trumpet sound,

Nor loves the tempered brand;

Then thy name, my Walter Selby,

Shall be mute in Cumberland.

"But, alas! the form of the lovely and the brave was not permitted to sink silently into dust—it was plucked out of its lonely and obscure grave, displayed on a gibbet, and the head, separated from the body, was placed on the gate of Carlisle. All day I sat looking, in sadness and tears, on this sorrowful sight, and all night I wandered about, wild and distracted, conjuring all men who passed by to win me but one tress of the long bright hair of Walter Selby. Even the rude sentinels were moved by my grief, but no one dared to do a deed so daring and so perilous.

I remember it well—it was on a wild and stormy night, the rain fell fast, the thunder rocked the walls, and the lightnings, flashing far and wide, showed the castle's shattered towers and the river Eden rolling deep in flood. I wrapped my robe about me, and approached the gate. The sentinels, obeying the storm, had sought shelter in the turrets, and no living soul seemed abroad but my own unhappy self. I gazed up to the gate—where, alas! I had often gazed—and I thought I beheld a human form; a flash of lightning passed,