Seven monarchs’ wealth in that castle lies stow’d,
     The foul fiends brood o’er them like raven and toad. 
     Whoever shall questen these chambers within,
     From curfew to matins, that treasure shall win.

     But manhood grows faint as the world waxes old! 
     There lives not in Britain a champion so bold,
     So dauntless of heart, and so prudent of brain,
     As to dare the adventure that treasure to gain.

     The waste ridge of Cheviot shall wave with the rye,
     Before the rude Scots shall Northumberland fly,
     And the flint cliffs of Bambro’ shall melt in the sun
     Before that adventure be perill’d and won.”

Long afterwards, when Harold the Dauntless entered the castle, the seven shields still hung where Adolf had placed them, each blazoned with its coat of arms: 

     “A wolf North Wales had on his armour coat,
       And Rhys of Powis-land a couchant stag;
     Strath Clwyd’s strange emblem was a stranded boat;
       Donald of Galloway’s a trotting nag;
     A corn-sheaf gilt was fertile Lodon’s brag;
       A dudgeon-dagger was by Dunmail worn;
     Northumbrian Adolf gave a sea-beat crag;
       Surmounted by a cross,—­such signs were borne
     Upon these antique shields, all wasted now and worn.”

And within the castle, in that chamber where Adolf repelled the embarrassing advances of that most unmaidenly band of sisters, and did “a slaughter grim and great”: 

     “There of the witch brides lay each skeleton,
     Still in the posture as to death when dight;
     For this lay prone, by one blow slain outright;
     And that, as one who struggles long in dying;
     One bony hand held knife, as if to smite;
     One bent on fleshless knees, as mercy crying;
     One lay across the floor, as kill’d in act of flying.”

Perhaps it is part of the wealth of those “seven monarchs” that now lies sunken in Broomlee Lough.  Did some one, greatly daring, “adventure that treasure to win,” and succeed in his attempt?  Tradition tells that a dweller in Sewingshields Castle, long ago, being compelled to flee the country, and unable to bear away with him his hoard of gold, resolved to sink it in the lough.  Rowing, therefore, far out into deep water, he hove overboard a chest containing all his treasure, putting on it a spell that never should it be again seen till brought to land by aid of “Twa twin yauds, twa twin oxen, twa twin lads, and a chain forged by a smith of kind.”

Long centuries the treasure remained unsought; yet all men might know exactly where lay the chest beneath the waves, for it mattered not how fierce blew the gale, above the gold the surface of the water was ever unbroken.  At last there came one who heard the tradition, and set about the task of recovering the sunken chest.  The twin horses, twin oxen, and twin lads he procured readily enough, but to find a