26.  Then he[114] pulled forth his bright browne sword,
And dryed it on his sleeve,
And the first good stroke John Stewart stroke,
Child Maurice head he did cleeve.

27.  And he pricked it on his sword’s poynt,
Went singing there beside,
And he rode till he came to that ladye faire,
Whereas this ladye lyed[115].

28.  And sayes, “Dost thou know Child Maurice head,
If that thou dost it see? 
And lap it soft, and kisse it oft,
For thou lovedst him better than me.”

29.  But when she looked on Child Maurice head,
She never spake words but three:—­
“I never beare no childe but one,
And you have slaine him trulye.”

30.  Sayes[116], “Wicked be my merrymen all,
I gave meate, drinke, and clothe! 
But could they not have holden me
When I was in all that wrath!”

31.  “For I have slaine one of the curteousest knights
That ever bestrode a steed,
So[117] have I done one of the fairest ladyes
That ever ware woman’s weede!”

[Footnote 102:  It is worth while to quote Gray’s praise of this ballad:—­“I have got the old Scotch ballad on which ‘Douglas’ [the well-known tragedy by Home] was founded.  It is divine....  Aristotle’s best rules are observed in a manner which shows the author never had heard of Aristotle.”—­Letter to Mason, in ‘Works,’ ed.  Gosse, ii. 316.]

[Footnote 103:  That is, the page is to greet the lady as many times as there are knots in nets for the hair (kell), or merchants going to dear (leeve, lief) London, or thoughts of the heart, or schoolmasters in all schoolhouses.  These multiplied and comparative greetings are common in folk-lore, particularly in German popular lyric.]

     [Footnote 104:  Let (desist) is an infinitive depending on
     bid.]

     [Footnote 105:  Went, walked.]

     [Footnote 106:  Certainly.]

     [Footnote 107:  Stopped.]

     [Footnote 108:  Protect.]

     [Footnote 109:  These, of course, are tokens of the Childe’s
     identity.]

     [Footnote 110:  Clothes.]

     [Footnote 111:  Leash.]

     [Footnote 112:  That one = the one. That is the old neuter
     form of the definite article.  Cf. the tother for
     that other.]

     [Footnote 113:  Brown, used in this way, seems to mean
     burnished, or glistening, and is found in Anglo-Saxon.]

     [Footnote 114:  He, John Steward.]

     [Footnote 115:  Lived.]

     [Footnote 116:  John Steward.]

     [Footnote 117:  Compare the similar swiftness of tragic
     development in ’Babylon.’]¸

     THE WIFE OF USHER’S WELL

     1.  There lived a wife at Usher’s Well,
          And a wealthy wife was she;
        She had three stout and stalwart sons,
          And sent them o’er the sea.