“Certainly; he sat at the king’s right knee.”
“Yes, yes, that’s the one! Then Rafe is Sir Patrick part of the time, and I the other part, because everybody likes to be him; but there’s nobody left for the ‘lords o’ Noroway’ or the sailors, and the Wrig is the only maiden to sit on the shore, and she always forgets to comb her hair and weep at the right time.”
The forgetful and placid Wrig (I afterwards learned that this is a Scots word for the youngest bird in the nest) was seated on the grass, with her fat hands full of pink thyme and white wild woodruff. The sun shone on her curly flaxen head. She wore a dark blue cotton frock with white dots, and a short-sleeved pinafore; and though she was utterly useless from a dramatic point of view, she was the sweetest little Scotch dumpling I ever looked upon. She had been tried and found wanting in most of the principal parts of the ballad, but when left out of the performance altogether she was wont to scream so lustily that all Crummylowe rushed to her assistance.
“Now let us practise a bit to see if we know what we are going to do,” said Sir Apple-Cheek. “Rafe, you can be Sir Patrick this time. The reason why we all like to be Sir Patrick,” he explained, turning to me, “is that the lords o’ Noroway say to him—
‘Ye Scottishmen spend a’ our King’s gowd,
And a’ our Queenis fee’;
and then he answers,—
‘“Ye lee! ye lee! ye leers loud,
Fu’ loudly do ye lee!”’
and a lot of splendid things like that. Well, I’ll be the king,” and accordingly he began:—
‘The King sits in Dunfermline tower,
Drinking the bluid-red wine.
“O whaur will I get a skeely skipper
To sail this new ship o’ mine?”’
A dead silence ensued, whereupon the king said testily, “Now, Dandie, you never remember you’re the eldern knight; go on!”