The English and Scottish Popular Ballads :: :: University of Virginia Library

Johnson's Museum, No 303, p. 312, contributed by Burns; Cromek, Reliques of Robert Burns, 4th ed., 1817, p. 287; Cromek, Select Scottish Songs, etc., 1810, II, 151. From oral tradition in Ayrshire.

1

Our lords are to the mountains gane,
A hunting o the fallow deer,
And they hae gripet Hughie Graham,
For stealing o the bishop's mare.

2

And they hae tied him hand and foot,
And led him up thro Stirling town;
The lads and lasses met him there,
Cried, Hughie Graham, thou art a loun!

3

‘O lowse my right hand free,’ he says,
‘And put my braid sword in the same,
He's no in Stirling town this day
Daur tell the tale to Hughie Graham.’

4

Up then bespake the brave Whitefoord,
As he sat by the bishop's knee:
‘Five hundred white stots I'll gie you,
If ye'll let Hughie Graham gae free.’

5

‘O haud your tongue,’ the bishop says,
‘And wi your pleading let me be!
For tho ten Grahams were in his coat,
Hughie Graham this day shall die.’

6

Up then bespake the fair Whitefoord,
As she sat by the bishop's knee:
‘Five hundred white pence I'll gee you,
If ye'll gie Hughie Graham to me.’

7

‘O haud your tongue now, lady fair,
And wi your pleading let it be!
Altho ten Grahams were in his coat,
It's for my honour he maun die.’

8

They've taen him to the gallows-knowe,
He looked to the gallows-tree,
Yet never colour left his cheek,
Nor ever did he blink his ee.

9

At length he looked round about,
To see whatever he could spy,
And there he saw his auld father,
And he was weeping bitterly.

10

‘O haud your tongue, my father dear,
And wi your weeping let it be!
Thy weeping's sairer on my heart
Than a' that they can do to me.

11

‘And ye may gie my brother John
My sword that's bent in the middle clear,
And let him cone at twelve o'clock,
And see my pay the bishop's mare.

12

‘And ye may gie my brother James
My sword that's bent in the middle brown,
And bid him come at four o'clock,
And see his brother Hugh cut down.

13

‘Remember me to Maggy my wife,
The niest time ye gang oer the moor;
Tell her, she staw the bishop's mare,
Tell her, she was the bishop's whore.

14

‘And ye may tell my kith and kin
I never did disgrace their blood,
And when they meet the bishop's cloak,
To mak it shorter by the hood.’