The mighty earl of Eglinton,
With lords and ladies fair,
Over his wide domain has gone,
To hunt the timid hare.

Over the lawns, and across the brooks,
And adown the rushy dells;
Through woods that ring with noisy rooks,
And along the clanging fells.

But a sudden storm o'erran the day
As they scour'd an open field;
And fain were they to bend their way
To a tenant's lowly bield.

As in beneath the sheltering sheds
The courtly riders wheel,
They come on a group of curly heads
Around their mid-day meal.

And some remark'd their sun-bleach'd hair,
And some their bright blue eyes;
But what the nature of their fare,
No lordling could surmise!

Then turn'd they to the earl, each one —
Not even his earlship knows.
" What's that you eat? " asked Eglinton.
They answer him — " Pease Brose "

" Pease Brose to dinner! brose alone!
With neither boil nor stew!
But say, what did you breakfast on? "
They answer — " Pease Brose too! "

" Such food for pigs were better fit! —
Yet say, my little men,
What kind of supper will you get? " —
" Ou juist Pease Brose again! "

" Pease Brose! and still again Pease Brose!
What does your father do
With all the oats and wheat he grows?
Eggs, cheese, and butter too? "

The eldest cries, with half a frown,
As down his spoon he throws, —
" That greedy sinner, Eglinton,
Leaves naething but Pease Brose! "

The red broke through the earl's pale face,
The blue broke through the day;
He spurr'd his charger to the chase,
And swiftly they rode away.

But the curly heads coursed in his mind —
For so the story goes, —
And ever after that they dined
On better than Pease Brose .