O
G. A. Sala, Illustrated London News, October 21, 1882, LXXXI, 415, repeated in Living London, 1883, p. 465: heard from a nurse in childhood.
1
It rains, it rains, in merry Scotland,
It rains both great and small,
And all the children in merry Scotland
Must needs play at ball.
2
They toss the ball so high,
And they toss the ball so low;
They toss it into the Jew’s garden,
Where the Jews sate all of a row.
3
. . . . . . .
A-dressëd all in green:
‘Come in, come in, my pretty lad,
And you shall have your ball again.’
4
‘They set me in a chair of state,
And gave me sugar sweet;
They laid me on a dresser-board,
And stuck me like a sheep.
5
‘Oh lay a Bible at my head,
And a Prayer-Book at my feet!
In the well that they did throw me in,
Full five-and-fifty feet deep.’