Page:The Lady of the Lake - Scott (1810).djvu/438

 moche loved and douted you, that we will breke no coffer, nor breke no poynt of that ye have ordayned and commanded."—Lord Froissart.

The jongleurs, or jugglers, as we learn from the elaborate work of the late Mr Strutt, on the sports and pastimes of the people of England, used to call in the aid of various assistants, to render these performances as captivating as possible. The glee-maiden was a necessary attendant. Her duty was tumbling and dancing; and therefore the Anglo-Saxon version of Saint Mark's Gospel states Herodias to have vaulted or tumbled before King Herod. In Scotland, these poor creatures seem, even at a late period, to have been bonds-women to their masters, as appears from a case reported by Fountainhall. "Reid the mountebank pursues Scot of Harden and his lady, for stealing away from him a little girl, called the tumbling-lassie, that danced upon his stage: and he claimed damages, and produced a contract, whereby he bought her from her mother, for 30l. Scots. But we have no slaves in Scotland, and mothers cannot sell their bairns; and physicians attested, the employment of tumbling would kill her; and her joints were now grown stiff, and she declined to return; though she was at least a 'prentice, and so could not run away from her master: