Here I have only
familiarity with the romantic perversion of facts that marks all
ballads on historical themes to guide me.
Salkeld is met -
"As we crossed the Batable land,
When to the English side we held."
The ballad does not specify the crossing of Esk, nor say that Salkeld
was on the English side; nor is there any blunder in the reply of the
"mason gang" -
"We gang to harry a corbie's nest,
That wons not far frae Woodhouselee."
Whether on English or Scottish soil the masons say not, and their
pretence is derisive, bitterly ironical.
Colonel Elliot makes much of the absence of mention of the Esk, and
says "it is AFTER they are in England that the false reports are
spread." {139a} But the ballad does not say so--read it! All passes
with judicious vagueness.
"As we crossed the Batable land,
When to the English side we held."
Satchells knows that the ladders were made at Woodhouselee; it took
till nightfall to finish them. The ballad, swift and poetical, takes
the ladders for granted--as a matter of fact, chronicled in the
dispatches, the Grahams of Netherby harboured Buccleuch: Netherby was
his base.
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