Note 27 — SONGS.

The False Alarm is supposed to have arisen from what is called a house-heating, which stood in a conspicuous situation in the neighbourhood of Dunse. Hounamlaw, in Roxburghshire, mistook the lights for the beacon of Dunselaw, and she in her turn lighted up when she saw the former in a blaze. Owing to some delay or negligence, Blackcastle did not give the alarm, otherwise the whole of the Lothians would have poured forth their patriot steel. The Berwickshire yeomanry came to Dunbar, and the Dunse volunteers to Haddington. The emphatic prayer of an old woman, when the yeomanry were on their march through Dunse, shews the spirit of a country when threatened by invasion: “Lord, grant that ye may return victorious, or return no more!”