These speeches then their brother spake
To this sick couple there:
"The keeping of your little ones,
Sweet sister, do not fear.
THE PARENTS' DEATH.
THE RUFFIANS' FIGHT.
"God never prosper me nor mine,
Nor aught else that I have,
If I do wrong your children dear
When you are laid in grave."
The parents being dead and gone
The children home he takes,
And brings them straight unto his house,
Where much of them he makes.
He had not kept these pretty babes
A twelvemonth and a day,
But, for their wealth, he did devise
To make them both away.