The Turncoat

Set me out forewarned

While the heather glistened,

Tramped the starbright road

While my lady listened,

Soldiers at the doors,

Muskets at the casement,

All Kilmarnock groaned,

Milady in the basement.

 

There the road to Ayr

There the road to Dumfries

Torn by here or there

Mauchline; there lay Humphries:

‘Where’s the Laird o’ Fife?’

Pikemen swarm all over,

All the red stained coats

By Portsmouth, and by Dover.

 

‘Take the road,’ she said,

‘Take it, I’ll come after,

Find the Laird o’ Fife,

Lead us back to laughter,

Tell them Scotland’s sons

Have been led to slaughter,

Let them beat their drums

And save the old Laird’s daughter.’

 

On to Auckinleck

While the moon shines brightly

Cumnock came and went,

The horse drops dead beside me;

Sleep I by the light,

Tramp by wood and water

Lonely, night by night

For the old Laird’s daughter.

 

Eyes that gleamed like stars

Lips that would despair me,

Hands so soft and fair,

Heart that would not spare me

Sat at Marchburns stream

Met a man called Donald:

‘The army’s in some dream,

The Laird is at Kirconnel.’

 

One more night on foot

I found the army lying �"

‘Where’s the Laird of Fife?’

‘In grief, the Laird is dying!’

Then I saw his head

Bowed and grey and broken,

‘A horseman brought the news,

And news has brought a token.’

 

He showed me where the brooch

Was stained with bitter blood there,

From where Milady lay

He’d took it from her throat there,

And there the clasp was broke

Just where the pike had thrust it,

Had entered at her throat

And there the blood had rust it.

 

Late, by Kirk and brae

These nights there have I wandered,

Each eve I sit and pray

For love so basely squandered;

I have worn the red,

Lain long in the heather,

Sought Milady’s bed

And loved her as no other.

 

‘Take the road,’ she said,

But I had long betrayed her,

Left her with the dead,

With Humphries men dismayed her,

On some night as this

And where my love is lying

Death will come as bliss,

And red will stain my piping.

 

David Lewis Paget