Inglis Collection of printed music > Printed music > Scottish songs > Volume 2

don to his men, We maun draw to a hauld.
And what an a hauld fall we draw to,
My merry men and me ?
We will gae to the houfe of the Rodes,
To fee that fair ladie.
She had nae fooner bulket her fell,
Nor putten on her gown,
Till 'Adam' o' Gordon and his men
Were round about the town.
as archbiftiop Spotfwood relates, " under colour of the
q jeens authorhy, [he] committed divers oppreflions, efpe-
tially upon the Forbes's," ** had fent one Captain Ker, with
a party of foot, to fummon the caftle of Towie [orTavoy,
as Spotfwood calls it] in the queens name. The owner,
.Alexander Forbes, was not then at home, and his lady, con-
fiding too much in her fex, not only refufed to furrender,
but gave Ker very injurious language; upon which, un-
reafonably tranfported with fury, he ordered his men to fire
the caftle, and barbaroufly burnt the unfortunate gentle-
woman, with her whole family, amounting to 37 perfons.
Nor was he everfo much as caftiiered for this inhuman ac-
tion, which made Gordon ftiare both in the fcandal and the
guilt." Crawfurds Memoirs, Edin. 1753, p. 213. So that
it evidently appears that the writer of this ballad, either
through ignorance or defign, has made ufe of Gordons name
inftead of Kers ; and there is fome reafon to think the tranf-
yolition intentional. A ballad upon this fubjefl, in the Eng-
lifh idiom, and written about the time, which nearly refem-
bles that here printed, fo nearly indeed as to make it evident
that one of them muft be an alteration from the other, is
ftill extant ; in which ballad, inftead of Adam or Edom o'
Cordon, we have "Captaine Care," who is called " the