There’s a ship in the Tay on the rising tide—­
She has come that day from a distant land;
The captain stands there the helm beside,
A telescope holding in his left hand. 
“What, ho! my lads,” he loudly exclaims,
“Yonder’s a fire on the hem of the sea—­
It is some good ship that is there in flames: 
Good faith! and it blazes right merrily.” 
And there is a boat comes from the pier,
And it comes and comes still nigher and nigher—­
“What is the ship that is burning there?”
“No ship, sir, it is that is yonder on fire,
But a pile of burning barrels of pitch,
On which all, amidst a deafening cheer,
They are burning an old woman for a witch;
And the woman she is thy mother dear.” 
Then Captain Jamphray silent stood,
And a sad and sorrowful man was he;
He turned the helm in a gloomy mood—­
“Farewell for ever to Bonnie Dundee.” 
And away and away to the Spanish Main,
Where he turned a jolly buccaneer;
And he has ta’en “Yeaman,” his mother’s name—­
A name which he held for ever dear.

VIII.

When twenty long years had come and gone,
He was laden with Spanish golden prey;
And he yearned and sighed for his native home,
Then turned his prow for the rolling Tay;
And he has bought all, for a handsome fee,
On its bonnie banks where the trees are tall—­
The lordly lands of old Murie,[A]
Where he built for himself a noble hall;
And long, long down till a recent time,
There dwelt the Yeaman’s honoured line.

[Footnote A:  This tradition has always been in the Yeaman family, and very likely to be true, for the reason that an origin not gratifying to the pride of an old house would not have been accepted on the dubious authority of hearsay.]

XV.

THE BALLAD OF BALLOGIE’S DAUGHTERS.

There were four fair maids in Ballogie Hall,
  Not all so sweet as honey;
But Lillyfair was the flower of them all—­
  So gentle, so kind, and so bonnie.

And why was it that Ballogie’s dame
  Was so fond of her Lillyfair? 
It was not by reason she bore her name,
  Nor yet for her love and care.

It was that she long had cherished a dream
  Of a face which she once held dear,
Ere yet she had bent to Ballogie’s claim,
  Whom she married through force and fear.

That image unsought—­all by fancy wrought—­
  Had been fixed upon Lillyfair,
And to her had gi’en her bonnie blue een,
  As well as her golden hair.

Yet the dame was true to her bridal vow,
  Though sairly she would mourn,
As she wandered in moods through Ballogie woods,
  And down by Ballogie Burn.

And why did these three sisters all
  Hate their kind sister so sair? 
When gallants came to Ballogie Hall
  They sought aye Lilly fair.