278
retainers, until the production of a pair of clean spurs, in a covered dish, announced to the hungry band, that they must ride for a supply of provisions. He was married to Mary Scott, daughter of Philip Scott of Dryhope, and called in song the Flower of Yarrow. He possessed a very extensive estate, which was divided among his five sons. There are numerous descendants of this old marauding Baron. The following beautiful passage of Leyden's Scenes of Infancy is founded on a tradition respecting an infant captive, whom Walter of Harden carried off in a predatory incursion, and who is said to have become the author of some of our most beautiful pastoral songs.
Where Bortha hoarse, that loads the meads with sand,
Rolls her red tide to Teviot's western strand,
Through slaty hills, whose sides are shagged with thorn,
Where springs, in scattered tufts, the dark green corn,
Towers wood-girt Harden, far above the vale,
And clouds of ravens o'er the turrets sail;
A hardy race, who never shrunk from war,
The Scott, to rival realms a mighty bar,
Here fixed his mountain-home;—a wide domain,
And rich the soil, had purple heath been grain;
But, what the niggard ground of wealth denied,
From fields more blessed his fearless arm supplied.
Rolls her red tide to Teviot's western strand,
Through slaty hills, whose sides are shagged with thorn,
Where springs, in scattered tufts, the dark green corn,
Towers wood-girt Harden, far above the vale,
And clouds of ravens o'er the turrets sail;
A hardy race, who never shrunk from war,
The Scott, to rival realms a mighty bar,
Here fixed his mountain-home;—a wide domain,
And rich the soil, had purple heath been grain;
But, what the niggard ground of wealth denied,
From fields more blessed his fearless arm supplied.
The waning harvest-moon shone cold and bright;
The warder's horn was heard at dead of night;
And, as the messy portals wide were flung,
With stamping hoofs the rocky pavement rung.
What fair, half-veiled, leans from her latticed hall,
Where red the wavering gleams of torch-light fall?
'Tis Yarrow's fairest Flower, who, through the gloom,
Looks, wistful, for her lover's dancing plume.
The warder's horn was heard at dead of night;
And, as the messy portals wide were flung,
With stamping hoofs the rocky pavement rung.
What fair, half-veiled, leans from her latticed hall,
Where red the wavering gleams of torch-light fall?
'Tis Yarrow's fairest Flower, who, through the gloom,
Looks, wistful, for her lover's dancing plume.
