from those in later and
more cultivated fields of literature that, as a rule, they say less
rather than more than they mean. They speak daggers; but they are far
more apt in using them. At a word or look the lovers are ready to die
for each other; but of the language of endearment they are not prodigal;
and a phrase of tenderness is sweet in proportion that it is rare.

With the tamer affections it fares no better than with the moral law
when it comes in the path of the master passion. Mother and sisters are
defied and forsaken; father and brethren are resisted at the sword's
point when they cross, as is their wont, the course of true love. It is
curious to note how little, except as a foil, the ballad makes of
brotherly or sisterly love. It finds exquisite expression in the tale of
_Chil Ether_ and his twin sister,

'Who loved each other tenderly
'Boon everything on earth.

"The ley likesna the simmer shower
Nor girse the morning dew,
Better, dear Lady Maisrie,
Than Chil Ether loves you."'

But for this, among other reasons, the genuine antiquity of the ballad
is under some suspicion.

In modern fiction or drama the lady hesitates between the opposing
forces of love and of family pride and duty; the old influences in her
life do not yield to the new without a struggle. But of struggle or
indecision the ballad heroine knows, or at least says, nothing. A
glance, a whispered word, a note of harp or horn, and she flings down
her 'silken seam,' and whether she be king's daughter or beggar maid she
obeys the spell, and follows the enchanter to greenwood or to broomy
hill, to the ends of the earth, and to the gates of death.

For when the gallant knight and his 'fair may' ride away, prying eyes
are upon them; black care and red vengeance climb up behind them and
keep them company. _The Douglas Tragedy_ may be selected for its
terseness and dramatic strength, for the romance and pathos inwoven in
the very names and scenes with which it is associated, as the type of a
favourite story which under various titles--_Earl Brand_ and the _Child
of Elle_ among the rest--has, time beyond knowledge, captivated the
imagination and drawn the tears of ballad-lovers. In the best-known
Scots version--that which Sir Walter Scott has recovered for us, and
which bears some touches of his rescuing hand--it is the lady-mother who
gives the alarm that the maiden has fled under cloud of night with her
lover: