Quoth he, "My office I forsaik,
For all the dayis of my lyf,
For I wald put ane house to wraik, 115
Had I bene twenty dayis gudwyf."
Quoth scho, "Weill mote ye bruke your place,
For trewlie I will never excep it:"
Quoth he, "Feind fall the lyaris face,
Bot yit ye may be blyth to get it." 120
Than up scho gat ane mekle rung,
And the gudman maid to the [doir];
Quoth he, "Dame, I sall hald my tung,
For and we fecht I'ill get the woir."
Quoth he, "Quhen I forsuk my pluche, 125
I trow I but forsuk my seill;
And I will to my pluch agane,
Ffor I and this howse will nevir do weill."
[81-88]. This stanza, which does not occur in the Bannatyne MS., or in the ordinary printed copies, is given by Laing from a MS. "written in a hand not much later than the year 1600."
[106]. MS. cray.
[122]. MS. dur.
[THE FRIAR IN THE WELL.]
An old story, often referred to, e. g. in Skelton's Colyn Cloute, v. 879. The ballad is found in various collections in the British Museum, and is cited in part from one of these, in Dyce's note to the passage in Skelton. There is a Scottish version in Kinloch's Ballad Book, p. 25. The following is from Durfey's Pills to Purge Melancholy, iii. 325 (The Fryer and the Maid), but as that copy is abridged, we have supplied the omitted stanzas from Chappell's Popular Music, p. 273.
As I lay musing all alone,
A merry tale I thought upon;
Now listen a while, and I will you tell
Of a fryer that loved a bonny lass well.