{64} In the Roxburgh Collection is a copy of this ballad, in which the catastrophe is brought about in a different manner. When the young lady finds that she is to be drowned, she very leisurely makes a particular examination of the place of her intended destruction, and raises an objection to some nettles which are growing on the banks of the stream; these she requires to be removed, in the following poetical stanza:— ‘Go fetch the sickle, to crop the nettle, That grows so near the brim; For fear it should tangle my golden locks, Or freckle my milk-white skin.’ A request so elegantly made is gallantly complied with by the treacherous knight, who, while engaged in ‘cropping’ the nettles, is pushed into the stream. {72a} A _tinker_ is still so called in the north of England. {72b} This poor minstrel was born at the village of Rylstone, in Craven, the scene of Wordsworth’s _White Doe of Rylstone_. King was always called ‘the Skipton Minstrel;’ and he merited that name, for he was not a mere player of jigs and country dances, but a singer of heroic ballads, carrying his hearers back to the days of chivalry and royal adventure, when the King of England called up Cheshire and Lancashire to fight the King of France, and monarchs sought the greenwood tree, and hob-a-nobbed with tinkers, knighting these Johns of the Dale as a matter of poetical justice and high sovereign prerogative. Francis King was a character. His physiognomy was striking and peculiar; and, although there was nothing of the rogue in its expression, for an honester fellow never breathed, he might have sat for Wordsworth’s ‘Peter Bell.’ He combined in a rare degree the qualities of the mime and the minstrel, and his old jokes, and older ballads and songs, always ensured him a hearty welcome. He was lame, in consequence of one leg being shorter than the other, and his limping gait used to give occasion to the remark that ‘few Kings had had more ups and downs in the world.’ He met his death by drowning on the night of December 13, 1844. He had been at a ‘merry-making’ at Gargrave, in Craven, and it is supposed that, owing to the darkness of the night, he mistook the road, and walked into the river. As a musician his talents were creditable; and his name will long survive in the village records. The minstrel’s grave is in the quiet churchyard of Gargrave. Further particulars of Francis King may be seen in Dixon’s _Stories of the Craven Dales_, published by Tasker and Son, of Skipton. {92} This is the ancient way of spelling the name of Reading. In Percy’s version of _Barbara Allen_, that ballad commences ‘In Scarlet town,’ which, in the common stall copies, is rendered ‘In Redding town.’ The former is apparently a pun upon the old orthography—_Red_ding. {108a} The sister of Roger. {108b} This gentleman was Mr. Thomas Petty.