This old arm's withered now. T was

once

Most deft 'mong maidens all

To rein the steed, to wing the shaft,
To smite the palm-play ball.

In hall adown the close-linked dance
It has shone most white and fair :
It has been the rest for a true lord's head,
And many a sweet babe's nursing-bed,
And the bar to a King's chambére.

Aye, lasses, draw round Kate Barlass,
And hark with bated breath

How good King James, King Robert's

son.

Was foully done to death.

Through all the days of his gallant youth The princely James was pent,

By his friends at first and then by his foes,

In long imprisonment.

For the elder Prince, the kingdom's heir,
By treason's murderous brood
Was slain; and the father quaked for
the child

With the royal mortal blood.

I' the Bass Rock fort, by his father's care,
Was his childhood's life assured;
And Henry the subtle Bolingbroke,
Proud England's King, 'neath the south-
ron yoke

His youth for long years immured.

Yet in all things meet for a kingly man Himself did he approve;

And the nightingale through his prisonwall

Taught him both lore and love.

For once, when the bird's song drew him close

To the opened window-pane,
In her bowers beneath a lady stood,
A light of life to his sorrowful mood,
Like a lily amid the rain.

And for her sake, to the sweet bird's note,
He framed a sweeter Song,
More sweet than ever a poet's heart
Gave yet to the English tongue.

She was a lady of royal blood;

And when, past sorrow and teen,

He stood where still through his crown

less years

His Scottish realm had been,

At Scone were the happy lovers crowned, A heart-wed King and Queen.

But the bird may fall from the bough of youth,

And song be turned to moan,

And Love's storm-cloud be the shadow of Hate,

When the tempest-waves of a troubled State

Are beating against a throne.

Yet well they loved; and the god of Love, Whom well the King had sung,

Might find on the earth no truer hearts His lowliest swains among.

From the days when first she rode abroad With Scottish maids in her train,

I Catherine Douglas won the trust

Of my mistress, sweet Queen Jane.

And oft she sighed, "To be born a
King!"

And oft along the way
When she saw the homely lovers pass
She has said, "Alack the day!

Years waned, -the loving and toiling

years:

Till England's wrong renewed Drove James, by outrage cast on his

crown,

To the open field of feud.

"T was when the King and his host were

met

At the leaguer of Roxbro' hold, The Queen o' the sudden sought his camp With a tale of dread to be told.

And she showed him a secret letter writ
That spoke of treasonous strife,
And how a band of his noblest lords
Were sworn to take his life.

"And it may be here or it may be there,
In the camp or the court," she said :
"But for my sake come to your people's

armis

And guard your royal head."

Quoth he, ""T is the fifteenth day of the siege,

And the castle 's nigh to yield." "O face your foes on your throne," she cried,

"And show the power you wield; And under your Scottish people's love You shall sit as under your shield."

At the fair Queen's side I stood that day
When he bade them raise the siege,
And back to his Court he sped to know
How the lords would meet their Liege.

But when he summoned his Parliament,
The louring brows hung round,
Like clouds that circle the mountain-
head

Ere the first low thunders sound.

For he had tamed the nobles' lust
And curbed their power and pride,
And reached out an arm to right the

poor

Through Scotland far and wide; And many a lordly wrong-doer

By the headsman's axe had died.

'T was then upspoke Sir Robert Græme, The bold o'ermastering man :—

"O King, in the name of your Three Estates

66

I set you under their ban!

For, as your lords made oath to you
Of service and fealty,

Even in likewise you pledged your oath
Their faithful sire to be :-

"Yet all we here that are nobly sprung Have mourned dear kith and kin Since first for the Scottish Barons' curse Did your bloody rule begin."

With that he laid his hands on his King:

"Is this not so, my lords?"

But of all who had sworn to league with him

Not one spake back to his words.

Quoth the King :—“ Thou speak'st but for one Estate,

Nor doth it avow thy gage. Let my liege lords hale this traitor hence!"

The Græme fired dark with rage:"Who works for lesser men than himself, He earns but a witless wage!"

But soon from the dungeon where he lay He won by privy plots,

And forth he fled with a price on his head

To the country of the Wild Scots.

And word there came from Sir Robert Græme

To the King at Edinbro' :

That eve was clenched for a boding storm, 'Neath a toilsome moon half seen; The cloud stooped low and the surf rose high;

And where there was a line of the sky,
Wild wings loomed dark between.

And on a rock of the black beach-side,
By the veiled moon dimly lit,
There was something seemed to heave
with life

As the King drew nigh to it.

And was it only the tossing furze

Or brake of the waste sea-wold?
Or was it an eagle bent to the blast?
When near we came, we knew it at last
For a woman tattered and old.

But it seemed as though by a fire within
Her writhen limbs were wrung;
And as soon as the King was close to her.
She stood up gaunt and strong.

'T was then the moon sailed clear of the rack

On high in her hollow dome; And still as aloft with hoary crest

Each clamorous wave rang home, Like fire in snow the moonlight blazed Amid the champing foam.

And the woman held his eyes with her

Four years it is since first I met, Twixt the Duchray and the Dhu, A shape whose feet clung close in a shroud,

And that shape for thine I knew.

A year again, and on Inchkeith Isle I saw thee pass in the breeze, With the cerecloth risen above thy feet And wound about thy knees.

And yet a year, in the Links of Forth,

As a wanderer without rest,

Thou cam'st with both thine arms i' the shroud

That clung high up thy breast.

And in this hour I find thee here, And well mine eyes may note That the winding-sheet hath passed thy breast

And risen around thy throat.

"And when I meet thee again, O King, That of death hast such sore drouth,Except thou turn again on this shore,The winding-sheet shall have moved

once more

And covered thine eyes and mouth.

"O King, whom poor men bless for their King,

Of thy fate be not so fain;

But these my words for God's message take,

And turn thy steed, O King, for her sake Who rides beside thy rein!"

While the woman spoke, the King's horse reared

As if it would breast the sea,

And the Queen turned pale as she heard on the gale

The voice die dolorously.

When the woman ceased, the steed was still,

But the King gazed on her yet, And in silence save for the wail of the sea His eyes and her eyes met.

At last he said:-" God's ways are His

own:

Man is but shadow and dust. Last night I prayed by His altar-stone; To-night I wend to the feast of His Son; And in Him I set my trust.

"I have held my people in sacred charge, And have not feared the sting

Of proud men's hate,-to His will resign'd Who has but one same death for a hind And one same death for a King.

"And if God in His wisdom have brought close

The day when I must die, That day by water or fire or air My feet shall fall in the destined snare Wherever my road may lie.

"What man can say but the Fiend hath set

Thy sorcery on my path,

My heart with the fear of death to fill, And turn me against God's very will

To sink in His burning wrath?"

The woman stood as the train rode past, And moved nor limb nor eye;

And when we were shipped, we saw her there

Still standing against the sky.

As the ship made way, the moon once

more

Sank slow in her rising pall;

And I thought of the shrouded wraith of the King,

And I said, "The Heavens know all."

And now, ye lasses, must ye hear

How my name is Kate Barlass :But a little thing, when all the tale Is told of the weary mass

Of crime and woe which in Scotland's realm

God's will let come to pass.

'T was in the Charterhouse of Perth That the King and all his Court Were met, the Christmas Feast being done,

For solace and disport.

'T was a wind-wild eve in February, And against the casement-pane The branches smote like summoning hands

And muttered the driving rain.

And when the wind swooped over the lift

And made the whole heaven frown, It seemed a grip was laid on the walls To tug the housetop down.

And the Queen was there, more stately fair

Than a lily in garden set;

And the king was loth to stir from her side;

For as on the day when she was his bride, Even so he loved her yet.

And the Earl of Athole, the King's false friend,

Sat with him at the board;
And Robert Stuart the chamberlain
Who had sold his sovereign Lord.

Yet the traitor Christopher Chaumber there

Would fain have told him all,

And vainly four times that night he

strove

To reach the King through the hall.

But the wine is bright at the goblet's brim

Though the poison lurk beneath; And the apples still are red on the tree Within whose shade may the adder be That shall turn thy life to death.

There was a knight of the King's fast friends

Whom he called the King of Love; And to such bright cheer and courtesy That name might best behove.

And the King and Queen both loved him well

For his gentle knightliness;

And with him the King, as that eve

wore on,

Was playing at the chess.

And the King said, (for he thought to jest

And soothe the Queen thereby :)— "In a book 't is writ that this same year A King shall in Scotland die.

"And I have pondered the matter o'er, And this have I found, Sir Hugh.There are but two Kings on Scottish. ground,

And those Kings are I and you.

"And I have a wife and a newborn heir, And you are yourself alone;

So stand you stark at my side with me
To guard our double throne.

"For here sit I and my wife and child,
As well your heart shall approve,
In full surrender and soothfastness,
Beneath your Kingdom of Love."

Of minstrel ministerings;

But when he spoke of the Queen at the last.

Its strings were his own heart-strings.

"Unworthy but only of her grace, Upon Love's rock that's easy and sure, In guerdon of all my love's space She took me her humble creature. Thus fell my blissful aventure In youth of love that from day to day Flocereth aye new, and further I say. "To reckon all the circumstance As it happed when lessen gan my sore, Of my rancor and woful chance,

It were too long,—I have done therefor. And of this flower I say no more But unto my help her heart hath tended | And even from death her man defended.”

"Aye, even from death," to myself I said;

For I thought of the day when she Had borne him the news, at Roxbro' siege,

Of the fell confederacy.

But Death even then took aim as he sang With an arrow deadly bright;

And the grinning skull lurked grimly aloof,

And the wings were spread far over the roof

More dark than the winter night.

Yet truly along the amorous song
Of Love's high pomp and state,
There were words of Fortune's trackless
doom

And the dreadful face of Fate.

And oft have I heard again in dreams The voice of dire appeal

In which the King then sang of the pit That is under Fortune's wheel.

*And under the wheel beheld I there An ugly Pit as deep as hell, That to behold I quaked for fear: And this I heard, that who therein fell Came no more up, tidings to tell: Whereat, astound of the fearful sight, wist not what to do for fright."

And oft has my thought called up again These words of the changeful song:· Wist thou thy pain and thy travail To come, well might'st thou weep and wail!"

And our wail, O God! is long.

But the song's end was all of his love; And well his heart was grac'd

With her smiling lips and her tear-bright eyes

As his arm went round her waist.

And on the swell of her long fair throat Close clung the necklet-chain

As he bent her pearl-tir'd head aside,
And in the warmth of his love and pride
He kissed her lips full fain.

And her true face was a rosy red,
The very red of the rose
That, couched on the happy garden-bed,
In the summer sunlight glows.

And all the wondrous things of love
That sang so sweet through the song
Were in the look that met in their eyes,
And the look was deep and long.

"T was then a knock came at the outer gate.

And the usher sought the King. "The woman you met by the Scottish Sea,

My Liege, would tell you a thing; And she says that her present need for speech

Will bear no gainsaying."

And the King said:-"The hour is late; To-morrow will serve, I ween.'

Then he charged the usher strictly, and said:

"No word of this to the Queen."

But the usher came again to the King, "Shall I call her back? "quoth he "For as she went on her way, she cried, • Woe! Woe! then the thing must be!""

And the King paused, but he did not speak.

Then he called for the Voidee-cup : And as we heard the twelfth hour strike, There by true lips and false lips alike

Was the draught of trust drained up. So with reverence meet to King and Queen,

To bed went all from the board; And the last to leave of the courtly train Was Robert Stuart the chamberlain Who had sold his sovereign lord.

And all the locks of the chamber-door Had the traitor riven and brast;