III.
THE AULD GOOD-MAN.
A Scottish Song.
I have not been able to meet with a more ancient copy of this humourous old song, than that printed in the Tea-Table miscellany, &c. which seems to have admitted some corruptions.
[This song is printed in Ramsay's Tea-Table Miscellany as old, and it is also given in the Orpheus Caledonius, 1725. "Auld goodman" means a first husband.]
Late in an evening forth I went
A little before the sun gade down,
And there I chanc't, by accident,
To light on a battle new begun:
A man and his wife wer fawn[315] in a strife, 5
I canna weel tell ye how it began;
But aye she wail'd her wretched life,
Cryeng, Evir alake, mine auld goodman!