"Oh, please!"
he cried; "the one about the bold Buckle-oh!"
Hilda laughed merrily. "The bauld Buccleugh?" she repeated. "Oh! you
mean 'Kinmont Willie.' Yes, indeed, you shall have that. It is one of my
favorite ballads, and I am glad you like it."
"Oh, I tell yer!" cried Bubble. "When he whangs the table, and says do
they think his helmet's an old woman's bunnit, an' all the rest of
it,--I tell ye that's _some_, Miss Hildy!"
"You have the spirit of the verse, Bubble," said Hilda, laughing softly;
"but the words are not _quite_ right." And she repeated the splendid,
ringing words of Buccleugh's indignant outcry:
"Oh! is my basnet a widow's curch,
Or my lance a wand o' the willow-tree,
Or my arm a lady's lily hand,
That an English lord should lightly me?
"And have they ta'en him, Kinmont Willie,
Against the truce of Border tide,
And forgotten that the bauld Buccleugh
Is warden here o' the Scottish side?
"And have they e'en ta'en him, Kinmont Willie,
Withouten either dread or fear,
And forgotten that the bauld Buccleugh
Can back a steed or shake a spear?"
Zerubbabel Chirk fairly danced up and down in his excitement "Oh! but
begin again at the beginning, _please_, Miss Hildy," he cried.
So Hilda, nothing loth, began at the beginning; and as they walked
homeward, recited the whole of the noble old ballad, which if any
girl-reader does not know, she may find it in any collection of Scottish
ballads.
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