+The Text.+--From the Jamieson-Brown MS. All the other variants agree as
to the main outline of the ballad.
+The Story.+--Lady Maisry, refusing the young lords of the north
country, and saying that her love is given to an English lord, is
suspected by her father's kitchy-boy, who goes to tell her brother. He
charges her with her fault, reviles her for 'drawing up with an English
lord,' and commands her to renounce him. She refuses, and is condemned
to be burned. A bonny boy bears news of her plight to Lord William, who
leaps to boot and saddle; but he arrives too late to save her, though he
vows vengeance on all her kin, and promises to burn himself last of all.
Burning was the penalty usually allotted in the romances to a girl
convicted of unchastity.