[Queen Hildegarde by Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards]@TWC D-Link book
Queen Hildegarde

CHAPTER VI
19/23

"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.
"And the best of it is, Bubble," said Hilda, "that it is all true,--every word of it; or nearly every word." "I'll bet it is!" cried Bubble, still much excited.

"They couldn't make lies sound like that, ye know! You kind o' _know_ it's true, and it goes right through yer, somehow.


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