Geordie is Geordie Lukely of Stirling in F. In G, he is the Earl of Cassilis, ‘of Hye,’ as if some singer of the Gordons had turned the tables on Huntly’s enemy. In H, Geordie lives at the Bog o Gight, and should be the Earl, or Marquis, of Huntly; but writers of peerages will consult st. 17.
There has been a battle in the North in A-E. Sir Charles Hay[[89]] has been killed, and Geordie is in custody for this, A, B. Geordie has killed a man and is to die, C; the man is his wife’s brother, D. In E, Geordie is a rebel.
F begins with two stanzas from a vulgar last-dying-speech, of which more by and by: otherwise the story is not essentially injured, though the style is lowered. Geordie (in the first two stanzas) has done many an ill deed, but no murder or slaughter; he has stolen fifteen of the king’s horse and sold them in Bohemia. Earl Cassilis, likewise, in G, could not keep his hand off horses; he has stolen three geldings out of a park and sold them to Balleny (Balveny). Huntly, if it be he, in H, has only made free with the king’s deer. In I, J, Geordie has had an intrigue with Bignet’s (Pilbagnet’s, Badenoch’s) lady, for which the husband has thrown him into prison, and he is to die. But he owns to more than this in J. Beginning with an acknowledgment of one of the king’s best steeds stolen and sold in ‘Bevany,’ upon being pressed, he confesses to a woman abused and five orphan babes killed for their money.
Geordie points his message to his wife in C 2, D 4, by begging her to sew him or bring him his linen shirt (shirts), a good side shirt, which will be the last he shall need, and a lang side sark is equally prominent in the lady’s thoughts in I 8.
The lady stops for nothing in her ride to Edinburgh. She will not, and does not, eat or drink all the way, A 4, 5. When she comes to the water-side, finding no boat ready, she swims the Queen’s Ferry, B 7, C 5, D 9, J 13, L 1; or pays a boatman prodigally to take her over, H 9, I 9, J 14.
When the lady gaes oer the pier of Leith, comes to Edinburgh, to the West Port, the Canongate, the Parliament Close, the tolbooth-stair, the prison-door, she deals out crowns and ducatoons, makes the handfus o red gold fly, among the numerous poor, and bids them pray for Geordie. She has the prudence, in G 5, to do the same among the nobles many at the tolbooth-gate, that they may plead for Geordie.
The block and axe are in sight, and Geordie, in chains, is coming down the stair, A; the napkin is laid over his face, and the gallows is making ready, B (so F, but put further on), his head is to go, C; the rest of the nobles sit (stand) hat on head, but hat in hand stands Geordie, D, E, H, I, J, L.
The lady makes a plea for her husband’s life. She is the mother of many children (the tale ranges from six to eleven) and is going with yet another, B, C, K, N. She would bear them all over again for the life of Geordie, C, D, or see them all streekit before her eyes, B; and for his life she will part with all that she owns, A 10, B 11, 16, D 14.
The king in A is moved by neither of these appeals. The number of her children is so far from affecting him that he orders the heading-man to make haste. But the Gordons collect and pass the word to be ready. There would have been bloody bouks upon the green.[[90]]
The lady is told that by paying a good round sum, 5,000 (500) pounds, 10,000 (1000) crowns, she can redeem Geordie’s life. An aged lord prompts the king to offer these terms in A; in the other versions, they are proposed directly; by the king himself, F, G, I; by the queen, B, I; by the good Argyle, D; by an English lord, H. The bystanders contribute handsomely; she pays the ransom down, and wins the life of Geordie, A-D, G-J.