But it is probable that the song originally turned on a different theme. On the 9th September 1605, a man was killed by a Protestant in the Rue de la Harpe, at Paris, for singing the song "De Colas." This song was composed by a seditious faction, with the intent of provoking the Huguenots, upon the subject of a cow which had walked into one of their conventicles during the performance of divine service. The cow, which belonged to a poor peasant named Colas, was killed by the Huguenots for her sacrilegious act. Thereupon the Catholics made a collection in every town and village in France to raise a sum for the indemnification of Colas. The day after the murder the singing of the song of "Colas his Cow," was forbidden under the penalty of the gallows, and it was even dangerous for anyone to hum the tune in the street ("Concert Room Anecdotes," 1825, ii. p. 230). The song must have been brought to England and adapted to English words after the Restoration, and as the story of the occasion of the killing of the cow was forgotten, it was altered. The tune is very old, and we had it from an aged woman at Kingsweare, who sang "The Abbot of Canterbury" to it. But this has its own tune, given by Chappell, i. p. 348. I have added the final verse. 105. WITHIN A GARDEN. Taken down from Harry Smith, Two Bridges, Dartmoor. The original words were so poor, and so closely resembled those of "The Broken Token" (No. 44), that Mr. Shepherd wrote fresh words. The original began-- "A fair maid walking in her garden, A brisk young sailor came passing by; And he stepped up to her, thinking to woo her, And said, 'Fair maid, can you fancy I?' "'You seem to talk like some man of honour, Some man of honour, you seem to be; How can you fancy such a poor young woman, Not fit your servant for to be?'" The ballad is published by Such as "The Young and Single Sailor," No. 126. It is also in "The Vocal Library," London, 1822, p. 525. It was printed on Broadside by Catnach as "The Sailor's Return." We obtained it again from James Parsons. 106. THE BONNY BIRD. Always sung as "My Bonny Boy." It is the companion song to the "Jolly Goss Hawk" (No. 71). Words and melody from Mary Langworthy, Stoke Fleming. We have taken this down from two other singers, but not to the same tune; one J. Doidge, of Chillaton, gave us an air characteristic and good. Miss Broadwood has the song in her "County Songs," pp. 146-7, but to a different melody. In all the versions taken down from oral recitation, the word is Boy and not Bird, but _Bird_ is the original word. The ballad was printed by J. Coles, 1646-74, and by W. Thackeray, 1660-1680, and is in the Douce Collection of early Broadsides in the Bodleian Library; also in the Pepysian Collection, and is printed by Ebsworth in the Roxburgh Ballads, viii. p. 359.