There was peeping, laughing, sneering, All within the lawyer’s hearing; But his bride he could not see; ‘Would I were at home!’ thought he. While his heart was melancholy, Said the steward, brisk and jolly, ‘Tell me, friend, how came you here? You’ve some bad design, I fear.’ He replied, ‘Dear loving master, You shall meet with no disaster Through my means, in any case,— Madam brought me to this place.’ Then the steward did retire, Saying, that he would enquire Whether it was true or no: Ne’er was lover hampered so. Now the lady who had filled him With those fears, full well beheld him From a window, as she dressed, Pleasèd at the merry jest. When she had herself attired In rich robes, to be admired, She appearèd in his sight, Like a moving angel bright. ‘Sir! my servants have related, How some hours you have waited In my parlour,—tell me who In my house you ever knew?’ ‘Madam! if I have offended, It is more than I intended; A young lady brought me here:’— ‘That is true,’ said she, ‘my dear. ‘I can be no longer cruel To my joy, and only jewel; Thou art mine, and I am thine, Hand and heart I do resign! ‘Once I was a wounded lover, Now these fears are fairly over; By receiving what I gave, Thou art lord of what I have.’ Beauty, honour, love, and treasure, A rich golden stream of pleasure, With his lady he enjoys; Thanks to Cupid’s kind decoys. Now he’s clothed in rich attire, Not inferior to a squire; Beauty, honour, riches’ store, What can man desire more? THE NOBLEMAN’S GENEROUS KINDNESS. Giving an account of a nobleman, who, taking notice of a poor man’s industrious care and pains for the maintaining of his charge of seven small children, met him upon a day, and discoursing with him, invited him, and his wife and his children, home to his house, and bestowed upon them a farm of thirty acres of land, to be continued to him and his heirs for ever. To the tune of _The Two English Travellers_. [THIS still popular ballad is entitled in the modern copies, _The Nobleman and Thrasher_; _or_, _the Generous Gift_. There is a copy preserved in the Roxburgh Collection, with which our version has been collated. It is taken from a broadside printed by Robert Marchbank, in the Custom-house Entry, Newcastle.] A NOBLEMAN lived in a village of late, Hard by a poor thrasher, whose charge it was great; For he had seven children, and most of them small, And nought but his labour to support them withal. He never was given to idle and lurk, For this nobleman saw him go daily to work, With his flail and his bag, and his bottle of beer, As cheerful as those that have hundreds a year.