216 SEPTEMBER 



The keepers they did roundly swear 

 Bill were the lad as stole the deer. 

 Says he, ' My lord, I never were there ! ' 

 Eight-f al- ooral-ee. 



1 Now William Smail in prison is placed, 



Right- fal-ooral-ooral-ee, 

 Now William Smail in prison is placed, 



Right-fal-ooral-ee ; 

 And there he will not make a feast, 

 For bread and water will he taste, 

 For a matter o' six months at laste, 



Right-fal-ooral-ee. 



MORAL 



' Now there 's a moral in this tale, 



Right-fal-ooral-ooral-ee, 

 Now there 's a moral in this tale, 



Right-fal-ooral-ee : 

 The law agin ye will prevail, 

 And you '11 be cotched like William Smail, 

 And carried off to Bookenham jail, 



Right-fal-ooral-ee.' 



Now, I do not know how old this song may be, but it 

 has all the best traits of ballad literature. The 

 topography is as tersely set forth, the weather as 

 scrupulously described, the leading characters 

 sketched in as firmly, as they are in that 

 splendid and undoubtedly ancient lay, 'Jamie 

 Telfer o' the Fair Dodhead.' Depend upon it, if 

 this bard had lived near the Debatable Land, and, 



