But it’s harder that a’body’s married but me,”—
my uncle said, “Ye maun be ill to please; it canna hae been for want o’ offers.” He was then pressed to sing, and did his best; the words were new to all of us, but the tune, “Johnnie Cope,” was familiar. He said it was written by a friend of his, a farmer beside him. We suspected that the author was always very near him. He had sung it at the rent dinner in his laird’s house, and the laird was delighted with it, although it “wasna jist exactly what he wad like to happen to himsel’:”
THE FROSTIT CORN.
Tune—“Johnnie Cope.”
“Oh, I’m a young farmer hard set by the frost,
My gude expectations hae sairly been cross’t,
My craps that look’t weel, they are noo nearly lost,
By thir calamitous mornin’s.
“In the midst o’ last simmer it was understude
That we wad a’ haen plenty o’ gude halesome fude,