Glen Collection of printed music > Printed text > Scottish ballads

294
" O gin ye wad marry my sister,
It's I wad marry thine/'
" I wadna marry your sister,
For houses nor for land ;
But I'll keep her for to be my leman,
When I come ower the strand.
I wadna marry your sister,
For a' your gowd and fee ;
But I'll keep her for my leman,
When I come ower the sea."
Young Johnston had a nut-brown sword,
Hung low down by his gair ;
And he ritted it through the young Colonel,
That word he ne'er spak mair.
But he's awa to his sister's bouir.
And he's tirled at the pin.
" Where hae you been, my dear brother?
Sae late o' coming in.
Where hae you been, my dear brother?
Sae late o' comin in."
" I've been at the schule, sister," he said,
" Learning young clerks to sing."
" I dreamed a dreary dream this nicht ;
I wish it may be for gude !
They were seeking you with the sleuth-hound,*
And the young Colonel was dead !"
" They are seeking me with the sleuth-hound.
As I trow weel they be ;
* So altered, by the editor, from " hawks and hounds," the ordinary
reading ; it appearing to him probable that the former was the true origi-
nal reading, and that the latter was only substituted by reciters when the
dea of a sleuth-hound became obsolete.