17. The gown she pat upon her love Was o’ the dainty green, His hose was o’ the saft, saft silk, His shoon o’ the cordwain fine. 18. She’s pitten his bow in her bosom, His arrow in her sleeve, His sturdy bran’ her body next, Because he was her love. 19. Then she is unto her bow’r-door As fast as she coud gang; But out it spake the proud porter-- Our lady wish’d him shame-- ‘We’ll count our marys to the wood, And we’ll count them back again.’ 20. The firsten mary she sent out Was Brown Robin by name; Then out it spake the king himsel’, ‘This is a sturdy dame.’ 21. O she went out in a May morning, In a May morning so gay, But she never came back again, Her auld father to see. [Annotations: 1.2: ‘birling,’ drinking: cf. 7.1. 3.1: ‘bigly,’ commodious: see _The Gay Goshawk_, 19.1. 3.3: ‘shot-window,’ here perhaps a shutter with a pane of glass let in. 7.1: ‘birl’d,’ plied: cf. 1.2. 7.4: Cf. _Fause Footrage_ 16.4: a popular simile. 7.5: ‘stown,’ stolen: ‘yates,’ gates. 10.4: ‘gare,’ gore; _i.e._ by her knee: a stock ballad phrase. 11.4: ‘gantrees,’ stands for casks. 12.3: ‘sic,’ such: the MS. gives _sick_: ‘steer,’ disturbance. 13.4: ‘marys,’ maids. 15.4: ‘gains for,’ suits, is meet (Icelandic, _gegna_). Cf. Jamieson’s version of _Sir Patrick Spence_:-- ‘For I brought as much white money As will gain my men and me.’ 17.4: ‘cordwain,’ Cordovan (Spanish) leather. 21.2: ‘gay’: the MS. gives _gray_. This is Child’s emendation, who points out that the sun was up, 8.2.] LADY ALICE +The Text+ of this little ballad is given from Bell’s _Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs of the Peasantry of England_. It should be compared with _Lord Lovel_. LADY ALICE 1. Lady Alice was sitting in her bower-window, At midnight mending her quoif, And there she saw as fine a corpse As ever she saw in her life. 2. ‘What bear ye, what bear ye, ye six men tall? What bear ye on your shoulders?’ ‘We bear the corpse of Giles Collins, An old and true lover of yours.’ 3. ‘O lay him down gently, ye six men tall, All on the grass so green, And to-morrow, when the sun goes down, Lady Alice a corpse shall be seen. 4. ‘And bury me in Saint Mary’s church, All for my love so true, And make me a garland of marjoram, And of lemon-thyme, and rue.’ 5. Giles Collins was buried all in the east, Lady Alice all in the west, And the roses that grew on Giles Collins’s grave, They reached Lady Alice’s breast. 6. The priest of the parish he chanced to pass, And he severed those roses in twain; Sure never were seen such true lovers before, Nor e’er will there be again. [Annotations: 1.2: ‘quoif,’ cap. The line should doubtless be:-- ‘Mending her midnight quoif.’] CHILD MAURICE