Then out it spake her bonny Jean,
The youngest o’ the three;
‘O lady, dinna look sae sad,
But tell your grief to me.’—
XVIII
‘O wherefore should I tell my grief,
Since lax[1274] I canna find?
I’m stown frae a’ my kin and friends,
And my love I left behind.
XIX
‘But had I paper, pen, and ink,
Before that it were day,
I yet might get a letter sent
In time to Johny Hay.’
XX
O she’s got paper, pen, and ink,
And candle that she might see,
And she has written a broad letter
To Johny at Dundee.
XXI
And she has gotten a bonny boy,
That was baith swift and strang,
Wi’ philabeg and bonnet blue,
Her errand for to gang.