," replied the monarch, "but the king cam' in the cadger's
way--and Sir Andrew Gut-thrie and his bonny bride shall be provided
for."

FOOTNOTES:

[2] Bamborough.

THE ROYAL RAID.

Among the promoters of the wars and disturbances which so long
ravaged the Border counties, authors have been anxious to class
prominently the tender sex; not, however, in the way in which it was
imputed to these fair assuagers of man's misfortunes, that they shed the
blood of knights, in the times of Froissart. A whole book has been
penned--and another might follow it--on the wars and dissensions
produced by beautiful women; and, without mounting upwards to Eve, it
has been thought very well to begin with the maiden of Troy, who
produced the most spirited piece of knight-errantry that ever was acted
on the stage of the world. But, in almost every case on record, it was
the beauty of the fair disturbers, that, inflaming the spirit of
rivalship, set men a-fighting with so much zeal; and true it seems to
be, that, when beauty went into disrepute, and gunpowder came into
fashion--both much about the same time--we have never had what may be
called a _bona fide_ heroic battle. But the part which the Border fair
ones had in the bloody scenes of that distracted section of the country,
is represented to have been very different. The housewife, in those
times, served up to her hungry lord, under an imposing dish, a pair of
spurs; and this is represented as having been the gentle mode by which
the dame intimated that it was necessary for her lord to supply the
larder. The Flower of Yarrow herself did not disdain to stimulate, in
this way, the foraying spirit of old Harden. But we have good authority
that there were beautiful exceptions from this barbarous practice; and,
among these, we may safely place the unfortunate lady of Cockburn of
Henderland, the fair subject of the pathetic ballad of "The Border
Widow"--a strain which, so long as poetry shall hold any influence over
the heart of man, will continue to draw "soft pity's tear." If every
Border chieftain's wife had been like this lady, we would have heard and
read less of raids and robberies: the dish of spurs, that sent their
lords to the foray, would have been exchanged for the soft embracing
arms of affection, applied to keep them at home; and the blessings of
domestic peace would have harmonized with and softened the spirits which
a love of riot and rapine inflamed into excesses so