Teacher: Old English and Scotch; easy or hard to understand?
Pupil: After you have read two or three, I don’t think it is hard.
Teacher: If you had been an old Scotchman of those times, should you say they were written in hard or easy language?
Pupil: Simple,—quaint.
Teacher: Simple and quaint—old-fashioned. Let us turn to the ballads you had for to-day; see how they compare with these old ones. The first one, Lord Ullin’s Daughter—as regards the subject matter, is it the kind of story you think would appeal to ancient writers?
Pupil: It seems so; this one was about an elopement, they seem to write that kind of story.
Teacher: Anything else?
Pupil: Shipwreck.
Teacher: Do you think the old ballad writers would have been satisfied with the way the story came out?