CASTLE KENNEDY 



" The gypsies cam' to our lord's yett, 



And but they sang sweetly ; 

 They sang sae sweet and sae very complete 

 That down came the fair lady. 



And she cam' tripping doun the stair, 



And a' her maids before her ; 

 As sune as they saw her weel-faured face, 



They cuist their glamour o'er her. 



* come wi' me,' says Johnnie Faa, 



' come wi' me, my dearie ; 

 For I vow and I swear by the hilt o' my sword 



That your lord shall nae mair come near ye/ 



' Gae tak' frae me this gay mantle, 



And bring to me a plaidie ; 

 For if kith and kin and a' had sworn, 



I'll follow the gypsy laddie. 



6 Yestreen I lay in a weel-made bed, 



Wi' my gude lord beside me ; 

 This night I'll lie in a tenant's barn, 



Whatever shall betide me!'" 1 



It was John second Earl of Stair, better known 

 as Field-Marshal Stair, who, in the interval between 

 his military and diplomatic achievements, planned 



1 It is only fair to the memory of this countess, who was Lady Jean Hamilton, 

 daughter of the first Earl of Haddington, that the legend of her elopement is 

 amply disproved by the fact that she lived with her husband for 21 years, 

 and that he spoke of her with much affection in letters written after her 

 death. W. E. Aytoun carefully examined the character of this ballad, which 

 he regarded as "by far the most mysterious of Scottish traditionary tales," 

 and failed to reconcile it with any real incident. In publishing it in his Ballads 

 of Scotland, he suggested that it "was a malignant fiction, possibly trumped 

 up to annoy Bishop Burnet (who married Lady Cassilis's daughter) who had 

 many enemies." 



77 



