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"Really really, a most extraordinary statement; most queer of Spens not to come to me himself about it. What was the reply, Fluff?" "I told you Mr. Spens was ill and in bed. The stranger's reply was not favorable to your wishes. He wishes for the Firs; he has seen the place, and would like to live there. He says you must sell; or, there is another condition." "What is that?
Spens wrote at once to the new owner of the mortgage, and asked him if he would take five per cent. interest on his money, and not disturb you while you lived. Mr. Spens received a reply yesterday, and it is because of that I am here now." The squire's face had grown very white; his lips trembled a little. "What was the reply?" he asked.
"Good-bye, I am greatly obliged to you. Oh, that dear Frances. Mr. Spens, I think I hate the squire." If there was a girl that was a prime favorite with her school-fellows, that girl was Ellen Danvers. She had all the qualifications which insure success in school life.
Romance had begun to stir in her long sleep, for six years before sturdy baby Walter was born, Bishop Percy had published a book called Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. In this book he had gathered together many old ballads and songs, such as those of Robin Hood and Patrick Spens.
Spens and his client, whoever he is, must wait for their money, and that's what you have got to see him about, Frances. Come, now, you must make the best terms you can with Spens a woman can do what she likes with a man when she knows how to manage." "But what am I to say, father?" "Say? Why, that's your lookout. Never heard of a woman yet who couldn't find words. Say?
"Ay," said Spens, "and to tak' credit for that may be like blawing that you're ower honest to wear claethes." Hendry, who had gone to the door, returned now with the information that Mr. Dishart had left the manse two hours ago to pay visits, meaning to come to the prayer-meeting before he returned home. "There's a quirk in this, Hendry," said Tosh. "Was it Mistress Dishart the laddie saw?"
Upon this low shore line, which lies blinking in the midday sun, the waves of history have beaten for two centuries and a half, and romance has had time to grow there. Out of any of these coves might have sailed Sir Patrick Spens "to Noroway, to Noroway," "They hadna sailed upon the sea A day but barely three, Till loud and boisterous grew the wind, And gurly grew the sea."
For Raeburn could plunge at once through all the constraint and embarrassment of the sitter, and present the face, clear, open, and intelligent as at the most disengaged moments. This is best seen in portraits where the sitter is represented in some appropriate action: Neil Gow with his fiddle, Doctor Spens shooting an arrow, or Lord Bannatyne hearing a cause.
Let us now move away from that pure lyric centre in another direction. In a traditional ballad like "Sir Patrick Spens," a modern ballad like Tennyson's "The Revenge," or Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner," is not the poet's vision becoming objectified, directed upon events or things outside of the circle of his own subjective emotion?
Next day, wherever this letter had been affixed, another placard was found, worded thus: "As it has been proclaimed that those who should make known the king's murderers should have two thousand pounds sterling, I, who have made a strict search, affirm that the authors of the murder are the Earl of Bothwell, James Balfour, the priest of Flisk, David, Chambers, Blackmester, Jean Spens, and the queen herself."
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