What rending of hills, and what roaring of oceans!
Ay, that is thy voice, I know it full well;
And that is thy whistle's majestic swell;
But why wilt thou ride thy furious race
Along the bounds of vacant space,
While there is tongue of flesh to scream,
And life to start, and blood to stream?
Yet pother, pother!
My sovereign and brother
And men shall see, ere the rising sun,
What deeds thy mighty arm hath done."

Michael Scott and his guests kept watch together during the eventful
night; and when the friar and Charlie stepped out to the battlements
in the morning, they beheld the great mountain of Eildon, which before
then had but one cone, piled up in three hills, as described by us in
chapter XVI.

CHAPTER XXII.

Allan Ramsay--"The Gentle Shepherd"--Bauldy the
Clown--Mause the reputed Witch--A Witch's
Crantraips--Praying Backwards--Sad Misfortunes
attributed to Mause--Supposed Power of the Devil to
raise the Wind and send Rain and Thunder--Mause's
Reflections--Sir William disturbed--Symon's
Announcement--Promise to gain a Lassie's Heart--Doings
of the supposed Witch--Witches' Tricks--Longfellow's
"Golden Legend"--"Song of Hiawatha."

Allan Ramsay, who wrote in the first half of the eighteenth century,
does not appear to have believed in witches or evil spirits. He,
however, like other poets, found it convenient to introduce
superstition into his poetical effusions. This will be seen from the
following extracts from his _Gentle Shepherd_.

BAULDY.
"What's this?--I canna bear't!--'tis worse than hell,
To be sae burnt with love, yet daurna tell!
O Peggy! sweeter than the dawning day;
Sweeter than gowany glens or new-mawn hay;
Blyther than lambs that frisk out o'er the knows;
Straighter than aught that in the forest grows;
Her een the clearest blob of dew outshines;
The lily in her breast its beauty tines;
Her legs, her arms, her cheeks, her mouth, her een,
Will be my dead, that will be shortly seen!
For Pate looes her--waes me!--and she looes Pate
And I with Neps, by some unlucky fate,
Made a daft vow. O, but ane be a beast,
That makes rash aiths till he's afore the priest!
I darna speak my mind, else a' the three,
But doubt, wad prove ilk ane my enemy.
'Tis