D
Murison MS., p. 74; Aberdeenshire.
1
‘Aft hae I played at the cards and the dice,
It was a’ for the sake o my laddie,
But noo I sit i my father’s kitchie-neuk,
Singing ba to a bonnie bastard babbie.
2
‘Whar will I get a bonnie boy sae kin
As will carry a letter cannie,
That will rin on to the gates o the Boyne,
Gie the letter to my rantin laddie?’
3
‘Here am I, a bonnie boy sae kin,
As will carry a letter cannie,
That will rin on to the gates o the Boyne,
Gie the letter to your rantin laddie.’
4
‘When ye come to the gates o the Boyne,
An low doon on yon cassie,
Ye’ll tak aff your hat an ye’ll mak a low bow,
Gie the letter to my rantin laddie.’
5
‘When ye come to the gates o the Boyne,
Ye’ll see lords an nobles monie;
But ye’ll ken him among them a’,
He’s my bonnie, bonnie rantin laddie.’
6
‘Is your bonnie love a laird or a lord,
Or is he a cadie,
That ye call him so very often by name
Your bonnie rantin laddie?’
7
‘My love’s neither a laird nor a lord,
Nor is he a cadie,
But he is yerl o a’ the Boyne,
An he is my bonnie rantin laddie.’
8
When he read a line or two,
He smilëd eer sae bonnie;
But lang ere he cam to the end
The tears cam trinklin monie.
9
‘Whar will I find fifty noble lords,
An as monie gay ladies,
* * * * * *
A. a.
14. below.
41. Oh.
83,4. The gap should be filled, says Stenhouse, Musical Museum, IV, 405, with these lines:
As to gar her sit in [her] father’s kitchen-neuk
And balow a bastard babie.
b.
1, 2.
‘Aft hae I played at the ring and the ba,
And lang was a rantin lassie,
But now my father does me forsake,
And my friends they all do neglect me.’
31. But gin I had servants.
32. As I hae had right mony.
33. For to send awa to Glentanner’s yetts.
41. O is your true-love a laird or lord.
42. he a Highland caddie.
43. That ye sae aften call him by name.
51. My true-love he’s baith laird and lord.
52. Do ye think I hae married a caddie?
53. O he is the noble earl o Aboyne.
54. he’s my bonnie rantin.
61. ye’se hae servants.
62. As ye hae had right mony.
63. For to send awa to Glentanner’s yetts.
64. Wi a.
71. Aboyne the letter got.
72. Wow but.
73. But ere three lines o it he read.
74. O but his.
81,2. His face it reddened like a flame, He grasped his sword sae massy.
83==81. O wha is this, etc.
84==82. Sae cruel to, etc.
9. Wanting.
101. Gae saddle to me five.
102. Gae saddle and.
104. For I’m gaing to.
11.
And when they came to auld Fedderate
He found her waiting ready,
And he brought her to Castle Aboyne,
And now she’s his ain dear lady.
B.
91. he gett.
101. He gat.
D.
There is an initial stanza which, it seems to me, cannot have belonged originally to this ballad:
‘My father he feet me far, far away,
He feet me in Kirkcaldy;
He feet me till an auld widow-wife,
But she had a bonnie rantin laddie.’
241
THE BARON O LEYS
A. Skene MS., p. 20.
B. ‘Laird o Leys,’ Kinloch’s Ballad Book, p. 74.
C. ‘The Baron o Leys,’ Buchan’s Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 144.
‘The Baron o Leys,’ in The New Deeside Guide by James Brown [==Joseph Robertson], Aberdeen [1832], p. 15, and The Deeside Guide, Aberdeen, 1889, p. 23, is C. C 4–11 seems to be an interpolation by a later hand.
“Part of this ballad,” says Buchan, II, 322, “by ballad-mongers has been confused with the ballad of ‘The Earl of Aboyne’ [No 240, A b], called in some instances ‘The Ranting Laddie.’” Laing, Thistle of Scotland, p. 11, appears to have confounded it with ‘The Earl of Aboyne’ proper. He gives this stanza:
‘Some ca me that and some ca me this,
And The Baron o Leys they ca me,
But when I am on bonny Deeside
They ca me The Rantin Laddie.’
Herd’s MSS, I, 233, II, fol. 71, give the two following stanzas under the title ‘The Linkin Ladie:’
‘Wae’s me that eer I made your bed!
Wae’s me that eer I saw ye!
For now I’ve lost my maidenhead,
And I ken na how they ca ye.’
‘My name is well kent in my ain country,
They ca me The Linking Ladie;
If ye had not been as willing as I,
Shame fa them wad eer hae bade ye!’
‘The Linkin Ladie,’ judging from this fragment (as it may be supposed to be), was much of a fashion with the ballad which we are engaged with, and may have been an earlier form of it. Sir Walter Scott, who cites these verses from memory (Sharpe’s Ballad Book, ed. 1880, p. 162), says that the hero of them was a brother of the celebrated [Thomas] Boston, author of ‘The Fourfold State.’
‘The Baron o Leys’ relates, or purports to relate, to an escapade of one of the Burnetts of Leys, Kincardineshire, Alexander, A, B, George, C. A woman who is with child by him gives him his choice of marriage, death, or the payment of ten thousand crowns. He is a married man; his wife is ready to sell everything, to her silk gowns, to release her husband from his awkward position.