And he’s followed her by and by.”@

Buchan notes, I, 319, that Motherwell had sent him a ballad “somewhat similar in incident,” taken down from the recitation of an old woman in or near Paisley.

This was perhaps a copy of which the first stanza is entered in Motherwell’s Note-Book, p. 55:

When I gade doun to Colliestoun,

Some white-fish for to buy, buy,

The cannie clarkie follows me,

And he follows me spedily, -ly.

Or the ballad called ‘Ricadoo’ in the Appendix to Motherwell’s Minstrelsy, p. xxiii, No 29, where this first stanza is given:

The farmer’s daughter gade to the market,

Some white-fish for to buy;