“The lady she feasted them, carried them ben,
She laughed wi’ the men that her baron had slain.”
The second Ballad is that which, greatly daring, sings the praises of simple worth—thus expressing a tendency doomed by the spirit of later times. Unlike the reprover of Clara Vere de Vere, the minstrel adorns his theme with a dry humour, that spares neither hero nor heroine—dowdy country maid and dandified lordling. That is an excellent touch (verse 3) which shows the former’s resentment of the pert page’s remarks on her garments; so is her artful reference to the excellent appetite which will reward her future lord’s agricultural exertions—the ancient wisdom of “Feed the brute!” The Ballad craves a sequel, to be entitled “The Husband turned Husbandman.”
XXI
TORBEN’S DAUGHTER
Oh, we were many sisters small,
—On the lea—
So early did our father fall.
—The day it is dawning, and the dew it is falling so free.
1
All on a Sunday evening they scoured both spear and sword,