1827.] [ 495 } 



THE BORDERER'S LEAP. 



EssELSTONE-Heath, on the northern side of the borders, is the entrance 

 to one of those jumbles of rocks and mountains which seem to have been 

 destined by nature for the haunt of such wild and desperate characters as 

 held in these districts their reign of blood and terror, before the union of 

 the two kingdoms, and for some time after. It was there that the Raven 

 of Hornscliff, as he was called, one of the last of the " border thieves," 

 terminated his career in a manner well worthy of his life. The crime 

 which led to this catastrophe, although not unparalleled in the annals of 

 the period of which we write, would seem, to the refinement of modern 

 taste, too gross for historical detail : it may suffice, therefore, to say, that 

 at the marriage of one of his enemies, which was celebrated that morning, 

 the Raven made his appearance a guest as unlooked-for as unwelcome 

 with a numerous train of followers, massacred a great part of the company, 

 violated the bride before the bridegroom's eyes, and set fire to the house. 

 Unexpected succours, however, arrived although not before the work of 

 revenge had been but too well accomplished : the assailants were assailed 

 in their turn, when least prepared for defence the bridegroom liberated, 

 whom they had intended to carry off as a prisoner and their chief obliged 

 to betake himself to flight, alone and unarmed. 



It was the afternoon when the outlaw arrived at the borders of the heath ? 

 and his breath came freer as he felt the cool air from his own mountains, 

 and saw the declining sun, which hung over the cliffs to which his fugitive 

 steps were directed, pointing as it were to the place of their mutual repose. 

 He slackened his pace for an instant, to look around on the well-known 

 scene ; his heart dilated with a kind of pride as he felt his foot once more 

 on his native heath, which it pressed with an elasticity hardly diminished 

 by the weight of fifty years ; and his eyes sparkled with a fierce joy as he 

 saw the approaching termination of his flight. But he was alone and 

 unarmed for his sword had been broken off to the hilt; a host of enemies 

 were behind, and his place of refuge yet distant. He looked back as he 

 gained the summit of an eminence ; and although, to a less experienced 

 traveller, no sound would have been heard to break the stillness of the 

 hour, and no living form appeared to give animation to the desolate heath, 

 save that of the wild bird, now and then startled by his sudden step from 

 its resting-place ; yet, when he had bent for a moment his keen eyes on 

 the distance, and then turned his ear in the same direction, as if to catch 

 some note of confirmation, the outlaw snuffed up the wind like a fox pur- 

 sued to his covert, and, bending his body forward to the mountains, darted 

 on with renewed velocity. He did not rest again till he had reached the 

 base of the ridge of mountains which forms the termination of the heath ; 

 but his exertions, during the latter part of the journey, although not less 

 steady than before, were less violent. Perhaps his long and rapid flight 

 or, it may be, the pressure of approaching age had contributed to stiffen 

 his wearied limbs, and to depress his stout heart ; or, perhaps, it was only 

 some consideration of policy that induced him to reserve his strength for 

 the greater hazard and fatigue of ascending the rocks : but so it was, that, 

 towards the conclusion of the race, although the foremost of his enemies 

 was then distinctly in sight, the pace of the outlaw became gradually 

 slower; and at length he threw himself down by a small stream of water 

 that gushed out of the cliff, and turned his eyes deliberately upon the 

 heath. As his pursuer approached nearer and nearer, it could be seen that 



