This page has been validated.
44

For ſhe’s but twenty-four,
and I am ſixty-three,
And yet ſhe is a kind
and a loving wife to me.

Young Jamie lo’ed her weel,
and ſought her for his wife;
But he went to ſea.
and there he loſt his life:
Full ſore did ſhe mourn.
but it helped could not be:
Then I wiſh’d in my mind
ſhe would be a wife to me.

Her father got a fall,
by which his leg he broke;
Her mother ſhe fell ſick;
and little was their ſtock;
They had but ae milk-cow,
which was ſtolen from the byre;
And my bonny Jenny Bell
at working did not tyre.

Full fore did ſhe work,
and toil’d late and air,
Her parents to ſupport.
but ſcanty was their fare;
I ſaid I would maintain them,
if that ſhe would agree:
And ever would befriend them,
if ſhe would marry me.