He had not kept these pretty babes
A twelvemonth and a day,
But, for their wealth, he did devise
To make them both away.
He bargained with two ruffians strong,
Who were of furious mood,
That they should take these children young
And slay them in a wood.
He told his wife an artful tale,
He would the children send
To be brought up in fair London,
With one that was his friend.
Away then went those pretty babes,
Rejoicing at that tide,
Rejoicing with a merry mind,
They should on cock-horse ride.
They prate and prattle pleasantly,
As they rode on the way,
To those that should their butchers be,
And work their lives' decay :
So that the pretty speech they had,
Made murder's heart relent;
And they that undertook the deed,
Full sore did now repent.
Yet one of them, more hard of heart,
Did vow to do his charge,
Because the wretch that hired him
Had paid him very large.
The other won't agree thereto,
So here they fall to strife;
With one another they did fight,
About the children's life:
And he that was of mildest mood
Did slay the other there,
Within an unfrequented wood;
The babes did quake for fear!
He took the children by the hand,
Tears standing in their eye,
And bade them straightway follow him
And look they did not cry:
And two long miles he led them on,
While they for food complain:
"Stay here," quoth he, "I'll bring you bread, When I come back again."
These pretty babes, with hand in hand,
Went wandering up and down;
But never more could see the man
Approaching from the town:
Their pretty lips with blackberries,
Were all besmeared and dyed;
And when they saw the darksome night,
They sat them down and cried.
Thus wandered these poor innocents,
Till death did end their grief;
In one another's arms they died,
As wanting due relief:
No burial this pretty pair
Of any man receives,
Till Robin Redbreast piously
Did cover them with leaves.
And now the heavy wrath of God
Upon their uncle fell;
Yes fearful fiends did haunt his house,
His conscience felt an hell:
His barns were fired, his goods consumed,
His lands were barren made,
His cattle died within the field,
And nothing with him stayed.
And in a voyage to Portugal
Two of his sons did die ;
And to conclude, himself was brought
To want and misery:
He pawned and mortgaged all his land
Ere seven years came about;
And now at length this wicked act
Did by these means come out :
The fellow, that did take in hand
These children for to kill,
Was for a robbery judged to die;
Such was God's blessed will;
Who did confess the very truth,
As here hath been displayed:
Their uncle having died in gaol,
Where he for debt was laid.
You that executors be made,
And overseers eke
Of children that be fatherless,
And infants mild and meek;
Take you example by this thing,
And yield to each his right,
Lest God with such like misery
Your wicked minds requite.
They shot him dead at the Nine-Stone Rig
Beside the Headless Cross,
And they left him lying in his blood,
Upon the moor and moss.
They made a bier of the broken bough,
The sauch and the aspen gray,
And they bore him to the Lady Chapel,
And waked him there all day.
A lady came to that lonely bower,
And threw her robes aside,
She tore her ling long yellow hair,
And knelt at Barthram's side.
She bathed him in the Lady-Well
His wound so deep and sair,
And she plaited a garland for his breast,
And a garland for his hair.
They rowed him in a lily sheet,
And bare him to his earth,
And the Gray Friars sung the dead man's mass,
As they passed the Chapel Garth.
They buried him at the mirk midnight,
When the dew fell cold and still,
When the aspen gray forgot to play,
And the mist clung to the hill.
They dug his grave but a bare foot deep,
By the edge of the Nine-Stone Burn,
And they covered him o'er with the heather flower,
The moss and the Lady-fern.
A Gray Friar staid upon the grave,
And sang till the morning tide,
And a friar shall sing for Barthram's soul,
While the Headless Cross shall bide.
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