66 Away, away, thou traitor strang! Out o' my sight soon mayst thou be! I grantit never a traitor's life, And now I'll not begin wi' thee." "Ye lied, ye lied, now, King," he says, "Save a fat horse, and a fair woman, Twa bonny dogs to kill a deir, But England suld have found me meal and mault, Gif I had lived this hundred yeir! "She suld have found me meal and mault, But never a Scots wyfe could have said, "To seik hot water beneith cauld ice, I have asked grace at a graceless face, "But had I kenn'd ere I cam frae hame, I wad have keepit the Border side, { "Wist England's King that I was ta'en And on his breist bane brak a trie." John wore a girdle about his middle There hang nine targats1 at Johnie's hat, "O where got thou these targats, Johnie, That blink sae brawly abune thy brie?". I gat them in the field fechting, 66 66 Where, cruel King, thou durst not be. Had I my horse, and harness gude, It suld have been tauld this hundred yeir, "God be with thee, Kirsty, my brother, Lang live thou Laird of Mangertoun : Lang mayst thou live on the Border syde, Ere thou see thy brother ride up and down. 1 Tassels. "And God be with the, Kirsty, my son, Where thou sits on thy nurse's knee ! But an thou live this hundred yeir, 66 Thy father's better thoul't never be. Farewell! my bonny Gilnock hall, Where on Esk side thou standest stout! Gif I had lived but seven yeirs mair, I wad hae gilt thee round about." John murder'd was at Carlinrigg, Because they saved their country deir Nane of them durst cum neir his hauld. This ballad was first published by Sir Walter, from tradition. It is said that a bridge over the Annan was built in consequence of the melancholy catastrophe which it relates. "A NNAN water's wading deep, And my love Annie's wondrous bonny; And I am laith she suld weet her feet, Because I love her best of ony. "Gar saddle me the bonny black, Gar saddle sune, and make him ready; He has loupen on the bonny black, He has loupen on the bonny grey, O he has ridden o'er field and fell, "Now, bonny grey, now play your part! Gin ye be the steed that wins my deary, The grey was a mare, and a right good mare, She couldna hae ridden a furlong mair, 1 Wagered. 2 Swollen. 3 The belief that animals are enabled to perceive supernatural beings, is widely spread throughout Europe. “Children, horses, and cows,” says Martin, “see the second sight, as well as men and women advanced in years.”—Western Isles, p. 306. "About twenty days previous to the battle of Pentland, two merchants of Haddington saw on a Saturday's night, the apparitions of four men, in grey clothes and blue bonnets, standing round a dead corpse, lying swaddled in a winding-sheet-their dog was so feared, that he durst not go forward, but came running back among the horse's feet." -Satan's Invisible World. The Elfin a' i' the knock that were Gard dancing in a string; |