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" Wuthering Heights "

Moreover, there is evidence from an
unexpected quartur that such a ballad
existed in Scotland, or at least in the
North of England. The reader who
turns to the ninth chapter of "Wuthering
Heights " will find the following
passage:

I was rocking Hareton on my knee,
and humming a song that began:
It was far in the night, and the bairnies
grat,
The mither beneath the mools heard
that.

Wherever this couplet came from, it is
beyond all reasonable doubt a verse
the from the ballad which, whether through
Danish channels or directly from the
Scots, supplied the words for Loewe's
music. For purposes of comparison,
it may be as well to give the German
as it appears in the ballad used by
Loewe :
's war spat in der Nacht, und der Kindlein
Gewein

Drang bis zur Mutter ins Grab hinein.
It is true that Emily Bronte's version
gives an anglicised "night" where one
would expect "nicht," but this at most
points to a somewhat anglicised
version being current in the North of
England, if only in fragments, at a date
subsequent to the composition of
Loewe's ballad. The alternative possibility
that Emily Bronte translated a
couplet from Danish sources or from
the text used by Loewe is too obviously
a violation of probabilities.

It would be dangerous for one who is
but an amateur in these matters to
assert that the ballad does not exist
somewhere in one or other of the Scots
collections, but I am not aware that it
reid:
But you are ashen and wan as the deid."

"O, hoo should I be white and reid?
This mony a lang I've been cauld and deid.''

And as she cam to the innermost ha',
Her bairnies lay greetin', ane and a'.

The first frae his bed she has ta'en and
dressed;
She has combed and kissed the hair o' the

The third she has dandled on her knee;
The fourth she has fondled couthily.

She has ta'en the fifth in the bield o' her
arm;
The sixth in her bosom she's keepit warm.

To her dochter turnin', she quo', quo' she:
"Gae, tell your father to come to me."

And when the Earl had come inby
She spak to him richt angrily.

"I left you wi' routh o' ale and breid;
My bairnies are deein' in bitter need.

"I left you wi' bonnie beds o' blue;
On the straw my bairnies are lyin' noo.

"I left you eneugh o' candle licht;
My bairnies lie in the mirk a' nicht.

"And aye, gin you gar me come back to ye,
It's care and a curse ye sal get frae me.'

"And I charge you "-(this to the hound
she spak)
"To see that nane o' my bairnies lack."

* * * *
And aye when they heard the hound snarl
laigh,
They filled the bairnies' dish and quaich.

And when the hound barked loud, in haste
They crossed themselves at the thocht o'
the ghaist.

And when the hound yowled lang and clear,
They trummled, kennin' the deid was near.

A. G.