She turned her back unto the wa',
Her face unto the room O;50
And there she saw her auld father,
Fast walking up and doun O.
"Woe be to you, father," she said,
"And an ill deid may you die O;
For ye've killed Willie, the widow's son,55
And he would have married me O."
She turned her back unto the room,
Her face unto the wa' O;
And with a deep and heavy sich,
Her heart it brak in twa O.60
WILLIE AND LADY MAISRY.
From Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, i. 155.
The Bent sae Brown, in the same volume, p. 30, resembles both Clerk Saunders and the present ballad, but has a different catastrophe.
Sweet Willie was a widow's son,
And milk-white was his weed;
It sets him weel to bridle a horse,
And better to saddle a steed, my dear,
And better to saddle a steed.5