"I won't come back, and I daren't come back,
Without my playfellows all;
And if my mother she should come in,
She'd make it the bloody ball."[64]
She took an apple out of her pocket,
And rolled it along the plain;
Little Harry Hughes picked up the apple,
And sorely rued the day.
She takes him by the lily-white hand,
And leads him from hall to hall,
Until she came to a little dark room,
That none could hear him call.
She sat herself on a golden chair,
Him on another close by;
And there's where she pulled out her little penknife
That was both sharp and fine.
Little Harry Hughes had to pray for his soul,
For his days were at an end;
She stuck her penknife in little Harry's heart,
And first the blood came very thick, and then came very thin.[65]
She rolled him in a quire of tin,
That was in so many a fold;
She rolled him from that to a little draw-well
That was fifty fathoms deep.
"Lie there, lie there, little Harry," she cried,
"And God forbid you to swim,
If you be a disgrace to me,
Or to any of my friends."
The day passed by, and the night came on,
And every scholar was home,
And every mother had her own child,
But poor Harry's mother had none.[66]
She walked up and down the street,
With a little sally-rod[67] in her hand;
And God directed her to the little draw-well,
That was fifty fathoms deep.
"If you be there, little Harry," she said,
"And God forbid you to be,
Speak one word to your own dear mother,
That is looking all over for thee."