Page:The Lay of the Last Minstrel - Scott (1805).djvu/33

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XXIII.
"What he gives thee, see thou keep;
Stay not thou for food or sleep.
Be it scroll, or be it book,
Into, knight, thou must not look;
If thou readest thou art lorn!
Better hadst thou ne'er been born."

XXIV.
"O swiftly can speed my dapple-gray steed,
 Which drinks of the Teviot clear;
Ere break of day," the warrior 'gan say,
 "Again will I be here:
And safer by none may thy errand be done,
 Than, noble dame, by me;
Letter nor line know I never a one,
 Wer't my neck-verse at Hairibee^[1]."

1. Hairibee, the place of executing the Border marauders at Carlisle. The neck-verse is the beginning of the 51st psalm, Miserere mei, &c. anciently read by criminals claiming benefit of clergy.