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plan of lonely wandering. She begged, therefore, permission, as a weary traveller, to pass the night in the cottage.
The good dame readily consented; saying, that she could not offer very handsome bedding; but that it should be clean and wholesome, for it had belonged to her youngest daughter, who was just gone out to service.
This arranged, the ballad was again begun, so exquisitely to the delight of the young audience, that though, at the stanza
Their little lips with blackberries
Were all besmear'd and dyed;
And when they saw the darksome night
They sat them down and cried,
Were all besmear'd and dyed;
And when they saw the darksome night
They sat them down and cried,
they all sobbed aloud; they were yet so grieved when it was over, that they clung around their grandame, saying, with one voice, "Aden, granny, aden!"
Granny, however, was too much tired to comply, and the repetition was deferred to another day.
