"It was nae wonder, my daughter, Janet,
Altho' ye loved this man;
If he were a woman, as he is a man,
My bed-fellow he would been.50
"O will ye marry my daughter Janet?
The truth's in your right hand;
Ye'se hae some o' my gowd, and some o' my gear,
And the twalt part o' my land."
"It's I will marry your daughter Janet;55
The truth's in my right hand;
I'll hae nane o' your gowd, nor nane o' your gear,
I've enough in my own land.
"But I will marry your daughter Janet,
With thirty ploughs and three,60
And four an' twenty bonny breast-mills,
All on the water of Dee.
LADY ELSPAT.
Jamieson's Popular Ballads, ii. 191. From the recitation of Mrs. Brown.
"How brent's your brow, my Lady Elspat?
How gouden yellow is your hair?
O' a' the maids o' fair Scotland,
There's nane like Lady Elspat fair."
"Perform your vows, sweet William," she says,5
"The vows which ye ha' made to me;
And at the back o' my mither's castell,
This night I'll surely meet wi' thee."