The Romantic Scottish Ballads: Their Epoch and Authorship Part 8

'But I'll be dead, ere ye come back To see your bonny Annie.'

'If you'll be true, and constant too, As my name's Andrew Lammie, I shall thee wed when I come back, Within the kirk of Fyvie.'

'I will be true, and constant too, To thee, my Andrew Lammie; But my bridal-bed will ere then be made In the green kirk-yard of Fyvie.'

He hied him hame, and having spieled To the house-top of Fyvie, He blew his trumpet loud and shrill, 'Twas heard at Mill-o'-Tifty.

Her father locked the door at night, Laid by the keys fu' canny; And when he heard the trumpet sound, Said: 'Your cow is lowing, Annie.'

'My father, dear, I pray forbear, And reproach no more your Annie; For I'd rather hear that cow to low Than hae a' the kine in Fyvie.

'I would not for your braw new gown, And a' your gifts sae many, That it were told in Fyvie's land How cruel you are to me.'

Her father struck her wondrous sore, As also did her mother; Her sisters always did her scorn, As also did her brother.

Her brother struck her wondrous sore, With cruel strokes and many; He brak her back in the hall-door, For loving Andrew Lammie.

'Alas, my father and mother dear, Why are you so cruel to Annie?

My heart was broken first by love, Now you have broken my bodie.

'Oh, mother dear, make ye my bed, And lay my face to Fyvie; There will I lie, and thus will die, For my love, Andrew Lammie.'

Her mother she has made her bed, And laid her face to Fyvie; Her tender heart it soon did break, And she ne'er saw Andrew Lammie.

When Andrew home from Edinburgh came, With mickle grief and sorrow: 'My love has died for me to-day, I'll die for her to-morrow.'

He has gone on to Tifty's den, Where the burn runs clear and bonny; With tears he viewed the Bridge of Heugh, Where he parted last with Annie.

Then he has sped to the church-yard, To the green church-yard of Fyvie; With tears he watered his true love's grave, And died for Tifty's Annie.

Let me repeat my acknowledgment that, while these extracts occupy more s.p.a.ce than can well be spared, they form an imperfect means of establis.h.i.+ng the negative evidence required in the case. But let the reader peruse the ballads of Buchan's collection known to relate to incidents of the seventeenth century, and he will find that they are all alike free from the favourite expressions of the unknown, or dimly known ballad-writer in question.

Let it never be objected that, if any one person living in the reigns of Queen Anne and George I. had composed so many fine poems, he or she could not have remained till now all but unknown. In the first half of the present century, there appeared in Scotland a series of fugitive pieces--songs--which attained a great popularity, without their being traced to any author. Every reader will remember _The Land of the Leal_, _Caller Herring_, _The Laird o' c.o.c.kpen_, _The Auld House_, and _He's ower the Hills that I lo'e weel_. It was not till after many years of fame that these pieces were found to be the production of a lady of rank, Carolina Baroness Nairn, who had pa.s.sed through a life of seventy-nine years without being known as a song-writer to more than one person. It was the fate of this songstress to live in days when there was an interest felt in such authors.h.i.+ps, insuring that she should sooner or later become known; but, had she lived a hundred years earlier, she might have died and left no sign, as I conjecture to have been the case with the author of this fine group of ballads; and future Burnses might have pondered over her productions, with endless regret that the names of their _authors_ were 'buried among the wreck of things that were.'

If there be any truth or force in this speculation, I shall be permitted to indulge in the idea that a person lived a hundred years before Scott, who, with his feeling for Scottish history, and the features of the past generally, constructed out of these materials a similar romantic literature. In short, Scotland appears to have had a Scott a hundred years before the actual person so named. And we may well believe that if we had not had the first, we either should not have had the second, or he would have been something considerably different, for, beyond question, Sir Walter's genius was fed and nurtured on the ballad literature of his native country. From his _Old Mortality_ and _Waverley_, back to his _Lady_ _of the Lake and Marmion_; from these to his _Lay of the Last Minstrel_; from that to his _Eve of St John_ and _Glenfinlas_; and from these, again, to the ballads which he collected, mainly the produce (as I surmise) of an individual precursor, is a series of steps easily traced, and which no one will dispute. Much significance there is, indeed, in his own statement, that _Hardyknute_ was the first poem he ever learned, and the last he should forget. Its author--if my suspicion be correct--was his literary foster-mother, and we probably owe the direction of his genius, and all its fascinating results, primarily to her.