The poetical works of Sir Walter Scott, with memoir of the author.

50 THE LAY OF [CANTO I.
Had filial grief supplied;
For hopeless love, and anxious fear,
Had lent their mingled tide:
Nor in her mother's alter'd eye
Dared she to look for sympathy.
Her lover,'gainst her father's clan,
With Carr in arms had stood,l
When Mathouse-burn, to Melrose ran,
All purple with their blood;
And well she knew, her mother dread,
Before Lord Cranstoun she should wed,2
Would see her on her dying bed.
1 The family of Ker, Kerr, or Carr,3 was very powerful on
the Border. Fynes Morrison remarks, in his Travels, that
their influence extended from the village of Preston-Grange,
in Lothian, to the limits of England. Cessford Castle, the
ancient baronial residence of the family, is situated near the
village of Morebattle, within two or three miles of the Cheviot Hills. It has been a place of great strength and consequence, but is now ruinous. Tradition affirms, that it was
founded by Halbert, or Habby Kerr, a gigantic warrior, concerning whom many stories are current in Roxburghshire. The
Duke of Roxburghe represents Kerr of Cessford. A distinct
and powerful branch of the same name own the Marquis of
Lothian as their chief. Hence the distinction betwixt Kerrs
of Cessford and Fairnihirst.
2 The Cranstouns, Lord Cranstoun, are an ancient Border
family, whose chief seat was at Crailing, in Teviotdale.
They were at this time at feud with the clan of Scott; for
It appears that the Lady of Buccleuch, in 1557, beset the Laird
3 The name is spelt differently by the various families who
bear it. Carr is selected, not as the most correct, but as the
most poetical reading.