“Ye hae camped birling at the wine,
A’ nicht till the day did daw;
Or ye wad ken your siller band
About my middle sma’!”
The King he stude, the King he glowered,
Sae hard as a man micht stare.
“Deil hae me! Like is a richt ill mark,—
Or I saw it itherwhere!
“I saw it round young Ruthven’s neck
As he lay sleeping still;
And, faith, but the wine was wondrous guid,
Or my wife is wondrous ill!”
* * * *
There was na gane a week, a week,
A week but barely three;
The King has hounded John Ramsay out,
To gar young Ruthven dee!
They took him in his brother’s house,
Nae sword was in his hand,
And they hae slain him, young Ruthven,
The bonniest in the land!
And they hae slain his fair brother,
And laid him on the green,
And a’ for a band o’ the siller fine
And a blink o’ the eye o’ the Queen!
Oh! had they set him man to man,
Or even ae man to three,
There was na a knight o’ the Ramsay bluid
Had gar’d Earl Gowrie dee!
The Queen O’ Spain and the Bauld Mclean.
A Ballad of the Sound of Mull.