“Oh, what’s the matter?” Lord Thomas said,
“I think you look pale and wan:
You used to have as fine a colour
As ever the sun shone on.”
“What, are you blind, now, Thomas?
Or can’t you very well see?
Oh, can’t you see, and oh, can’t you see my own heart’s blood
Run trickling down to my knee?”
Then Lord Thomas, he took the brown girl by the hand,
And led her across the hall;
And he took his own bride’s head off her shoulders,
And dashed it against the wall.
Then Lord Thomas, he put the sword to the ground,
The point against his heart:
So there was an end of those three lovers,
So sadly they did part!
*****
Upon fair Ellenor’s grave grew a rose,
And upon Lord Thomas’s a briar:
And there they twixed and there they twined, till they came to the steeple-top;
That all the world might plainly see, true love is never forgot.
“Oh, how delightful these old ballads are!” cried Anne, as Mrs. Sanker finished.
“Delightful!” retorted Julia Podd. “Why, they are full of queer phrases and outrageous metre and grammar!”
“My dears, it is, I suppose, how people wrote and spoke in those old days,” said Mrs. Sanker, who had given great force to every turn of the song, and seemed to feel its disasters as much as though she had been fair Ellen herself.
“Just so,” put in Mr. Angerstyne. “The world was not full of learning then, as it is now, and we accept the language—ay and like it, too—as that of a past day. To me, these old ballads are wonderful: every one has a life’s romance in it.”