B
Buchan’s Ballads of the North of Scotland, I, 85.
1
Charlie M’Pherson, that brisk Highland laddie,
At Valentine even he came to Kinadie:
2
To court her Burd Helen, baith waking and sleeping;
Joy be wi them that has her a keeping!
3
Auldtown and Muirtown, likewise Billy Beg,
All gaed wi Charlie, for to be his guide.
4
Jamie M’Robbie, likewise Wattie Nairn,
All gaed wi Charlie, for to be his warran.
5
When they came to Kinadie, they knockd at the door;
When nae ane woud answer, they gaed a loud roar.
6
‘Ye’ll open the door, mistress, and lat us come in;
For tidings we’ve brought frae your appearant guid-son.’
7
For to defend them, she was not able;
They bangd up the stair, sat down at the table.
8
‘Ye’ll eat and drink, gentlemen, and eat at your leisure;
Nae thing’s disturb you, take what’s your pleasure.’
9
‘O madam,’ said he, ‘I’m come for your daughter;
Lang hae I come to Kinadie and there sought her.
10
‘Now she’s gae wi me for mony a mile,
Before that I return unto the West Isle.’
11
‘My daughter’s not at home, she is gone abroad;
Ye darena now steal her, her tocher is guid.
12
‘My daughter’s in Whitehouse, wi Mistress Dalgairn;
Joy be wi them that waits on my bairn!’
13
The swords an the targe that hang about Charlie,
They had sic a glitter, and set him sae rarelie!
14
They had sic a glitter, and kiest sic a glamour,
They showed mair light than they had in the chamour.
15
To Whitehouse he went, and when he came there
Right sair was his heart when he went up the stair.
16
Burd Helen was sitting by Thomas’ bed-side,
And all in the house were addressing her, bride.
17
‘O farewell now, Helen, I’ll bid you adieu;
Is this a’ the comfort I’m getting frae you?
18
‘It was never my intention ye shoud be the waur;
My heavy heart light on Whitehouse o Cromar!
19
‘For you I hae travelled full mony lang mile,
Awa to Kinadie, far frae the West Isle.
20
‘But now ye are married, and I am the waur;
My heavy heart light on Whitehouse o Cromar!’
A.
Air, Whilk o ye lasses.
B.
Printed in stanzas of four short lines.
235
THE EARL OF ABOYNE
A. ‘The Earl of Aboyne,’ Kinloch MSS, V, 351.
B. ‘The Earl of Aboyne.’ a. Buchan’s Gleanings, p. 71. b. Gibb MS., p. 29, No 5.
C. Skene MS., p. 58.
D. ‘The Earl o Boyn,’ “Scotch Ballads, Materials for Border Minstrelsy,” No 17, Abbotsford.
E. ‘Earl of Aboyne,’ Harris MS., fol. 21 b.
F. ‘The Earl of Aboyne,’ Motherwell’s MS., p. 635.
G. Motherwell’s MS., p. 131.
H. ‘Bonny Peggy Irvine,’ Campbell MSS, II, 105.
I. ‘Earl of Aboyne,’ or, ‘Bonny Peggy Irvine,’ Motherwell’s MS., p. 128.
J. ‘Earl of Aboyne,’ or, ‘Bonny Peggy Irvine,’ Motherwell’s MS., p. 135.
K. From the recitation of Miss Fanny Walker, two stanzas.
L. ‘Earl of Aboyne,’ Motherwell’s Note-Book, p. 54, one stanza.
The copy in The New Deeside Guide, by James Brown [Joseph Robertson], Aberdeen, 1832, p. 26, is B a with a few editorial changes. It is repeated in The Deeside Guide, Aberdeen, 1889, with slight variations. The copy in Christie’s Traditional Ballad Airs, I, 22, is “given from the way the editor has heard it sung, assisted by Mr Buchan’s copy in his Gleanings;” in fact, it is B a with unimportant variations, which must be treated as arbitrary. Smith’s New History of Aberdeenshire, I, 207, repeats Aytoun, nearly, and Aytoun, II, 309, 1859, B a, nearly.
None of the versions here given go beyond 1800. Mrs Brown of Falkland, in an unprinted letter to Alexander Fraser Tytler, December 23, 1800, offers him ‘The Death of the Countess of Aboyne,’ which she had heard sung when a child: see p. 309, note.
A-I. The Earl of Aboyne (who is kind but careless, E) goes to London without his wife, and stays overlong. Information comes by letter that he has married there, B, or that he is in love with another woman, D. Word is brought that he is on his way home, and very near. His lady orders stable-grooms, minstrels, cooks, housemaids, to bestir themselves, A-E, I, K, makes a handsome toilet, A, B, D, E, F, and calls for wine to drink his health, B, C, D, G. She comes down to the close to take him from his horse, B, C, D, F, and bids him thrice welcome. “Kiss me then for my coming,” says the earl, and surprises his wife, and all of us, by adding that the morrow would have been his wedding-day, if he had stayed in London. The lady gives him an angry and disdainful answer. This he resents, and orders his men to mount again; he will go first to the Bog of Gight to see the Marquis of Huntly, and then return to London. The lady attempts, through a servant, to get permission to accompany him, but is repulsed, A, B, C, D (misplaced in G). According to A, C, D 24, F, the countess languished for about a twelvemonth, and then died of a broken heart; but D 25, G, H, make her death ensue before or shortly after the earl’s arrival at the Bog o Gight. Aboyne is very much distressed at the tidings; he would rather have lost all his lands than Margaret Irvine, C, D, E, G, H. He goes to the burial with a train of gentlemen, all in black from the hose to the hat, A, C (horse to the hat, B, E, F).
J. No Earl of Aboyne ever married an Irvine, and no Earl of Aboyne would have meditated open bigamy, and have informed his wife while receiving her welcome home how near he had come to perpetrating the same. The historical difficulty and the practical absurdity are removed by assuming that J alone has preserved (or restored) the true and original story, and that all the other copies, beginning with Mrs Brown’s, which calls the lady the Countess of Aboyne, have gone wrong. In J, Peggy Irvine is only Aboyne’s love, 13, and Aboyne is her true lover, 83. Aboyne was careless and kind, and kind to every woman, and Aboyne staid over long in London, A, and the ladies they did invite him, H. Under these circumstances, some Aboyne may have been on the brink of deserting a Peggy Irvine to whom he was engaged.
Aboyne is Boyn, D, Boon, H; Irvine is Harboun, Harvey, D, Ewan, E, K; Bog o Gight is Bogs o the Geich, D, Bogs o the Gay, G, Bughts o the Gight, H, Bog o Keith, J. The Bog o Gight is made Aboyne’s property in D, G, H. The Marquis of Huntly is blamed by Aboyne for inciting him to unkindness, D 28, G 11.