Adela Cathcart - vol. 3

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I

"There was John Gordon, and Archibold,

And an earl's twin sons were they.

When they were one and twenty years old,

They fell out on their birth-day.

"'Turn,' said Archibold, 'brother sly!

Turn now, false and fell;

Or down thou goest, as black as a lie,

To the father of lies in hell.'

"'Why this to me, brother Archie, I pray?

What ill have I done to thee?'

'Smooth-faced hound, thou shall rue the day

Thou gettest an answer of me.

"'For mine will be louder than Lady Janet's,

And spoken in broad daylight--

And

the wall to scale is my iron mail, Not her castle wall at night.'

"'I

clomb the wall of her castle tall, In the moon and the roaring wind;

It was dark and still in her bower until

The morning looked in behind.'

"'Turn therefore, John Gordon, false brother;

For either thou or I,

On a hard wet bed--wet, cold, and red,

For evermore shall lie.'

"'Oh, Archibold, Janet is my true love;

Would I had told it thee!'

'I hate thee the worse. Turn, or I'll curse

The night that got thee and me.'

"Their swords they drew, and the sparks they flew,

As if hammers did anvils beat;

And

the red blood ran, till the ground began To plash beneath their feet.

"'Oh, Archie! thou hast given me a cold supper,

A supper of steel, I trow;

But

reach me one grasp of a brother's hand, And turn me, before you go.'

"But he turned himself on his gold-spurred heel,

And away, with a speechless frown;

And

up in the oak, with a greedy croak, The carrion-crow claimed his own.

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