Sir Emilius placed in my hands a letter of which he said I might make what use I liked, and this letter contained the missing link. While the song has been generally credited to Douglas of Fingland, it has always been a matter of tradition rather than of ascertained fact.
But to the important letter.
It was written in 1889, by a friend, to Sir Emilius, and relates an incident which took place in 1854. At that time the writer, whom we will call Mr. B., was on a visit with his wife to some friends in Yorkshire. Mrs. B. was a somewhat famous singer of ballads. A few friends were invited to meet them one evening, and, after the ladies had retired to the drawing-room, their hostess asked Mrs. B. to sing; and she sang "Annie Laurie," in the modern revision, just as we all sing it.
Among the guests was a lady in her ninety-seventh year. She gave close attention to the singing of the ballad, and when Mrs. B. had finished, she spoke up: "Thank you, thank you very much! But they're na the words my grandfather wrote." Then she repeated the first stanza as she knew it.
The next day Mr. and Mrs. B. called upon her, and in the meantime she had had the original first stanza written out, dictating it to a grandniece. She had signed it with her own shaky hand. Not being satisfied with the signature, she had signed it a second time.
She explained that her grandfather, Douglas of Fingland, was desperately in love with Annie Laurie when he wrote the song. "But," she added, "he did na get her after a'."
She was not quite sure as to Annie's fate, she said. Some folks had said she died unmarried, while some had said she married Ferguson of Craigdarrock, and she rather thought that was the truth.
Questioned as to the authenticity of the lines she had given, she said:
"Oh, I mind them fine. I have remembered them a' my life. My father often repeated them to me." And here is the stanza signed with her name:
"'Maxwelton's banks are bonnie,