There is a popular tradition, possessing, we believe, no foundation in fact, that the incidents of this ballad belong to the history of the noble family of Cassilis. The Lady Jean Hamilton, daughter of the Earl of Waddington, is said to have been constrained to marry a grim Covenanter, John, Earl of Cassilis, though her affections were already engaged to Sir John Faa of
Dunbar. In 1643, several years after their union, when the Countess had given birth to two or three children, her husband being absent from home on a mission to the Assembly of Divines at Westminster, Sir John presented himself at Cassilis Castle, attended by a small band of gypsies, and himself disguised as one. The recollection of her early passion proved stronger than the marriage vow, and the lady eloped with her former lover. But before she had got far from home, the Earl happened to return. Learning what had occurred, he set out in pursuit with a considerable body of followers, and, arresting the fugitives, brought them back to his castle, where he hanged Sir John and his companions on a great tree before the gate. The Countess was obliged to witness the execution from a chamber window, and after a short confinement in the castle, was shut up for the rest of her life in a house at Maybole, four miles distant, which had been fitted up for her, with a staircase on which were carved a set of heads representing her lover and his troop.
Unfortunately for the truth of the story, letters are in existence, written by the Earl of Cassilis to the Lady Jean after the date of these events, which prove the subsistence of a high degree of mutual affection and confidence; and Finlay assures us that after a diligent search, he had been able to discern nothing that in the slightest confirmed the popular tale. The whole story is perhaps the malicious invention of an enemy of the house of Cassilis, and as such would not be unparalleled in the history of ballad poetry. See Dauney's Ancient Scottish Melodies, p. 269, and Chambers's Scottish Ballads, p. 143.
The gypsies came to our good lord's gate,
And wow but they sang sweetly;
They sang sae sweet and sae very complete,
That down came the fair lady.
And she came tripping doun the stair,5
And a' her maids before her;
As soon as they saw her weel-far'd face,
They coost the glamer o'er her.
"O come with me," says Johnie Faw,
"O come with me, my dearie;10
For I vow and I swear by the hilt of my sword,
That your lord shall nae mair come near ye."
Then she gied them the beer and the wine,
And they gied her the ginger;
But she gied them a far better thing,15
The goud ring aff her finger.
"Gae tak frae me this gay mantle,
And bring to me a plaidie;
For if kith and kin and a' had sworn,
I'll follow the gypsie laddie.20
"Yestreen I lay in a weel-made bed,
Wi' my good lord beside me;
But this night I'll lye in a tennant's barn,
Whatever shall betide me."