The Overgate
Sung by Belle Stewart with Hamish Henderson (choruses).
Recorded by Peter Kennedy in Blairgowrie, Perthshire, Scotland, in 1954.
I asked her what her name might be;
she said, Jemima Rose.
And I live in Blaeberry Lane,
at the foot o' the Buchan Close.
I asked what was her landlady's name;
she said it was Mrs Bruce.
And with that she invited me
to come awa' to the hoose.
As we went up the windin' stair —
them bein' long and dark,
For I slipped my money from my inside pooch and tied
it to the tail o' my sark.
We scarcely had got in the hoose,
when she took me to a room.
It was there we a bottle oot,
and then we baith sit down.
But a' nicht long I dreamed
I was lying in the airms o' Jemima Rose.
But when I wokened I was lying
on my back at the foot o' the Buchan Close."
This is essentially a Scottish tinker's song. Robert Ford, in Vagabond Songs and Ballads, has it called "My Roving Eye" and the traveler who sang it to him took his namefrom the song. Burns also came across a version called "Waukrife Minnie." The village of Auchtermuchty is in the Howe of Fife in northeast Scotland
Noo, as I gaed up the Overgate, I met a bonnie wee lass.
She winked tae me wi' the tail o' her e'e,
as I was a-walkin' past.
With me too-ran-a-lilt-for-laddie,
lilt-for-laddie, too-ran-a.
Noo, I asked her if she'd tak a glass,
[she said she'd like it fine].
Says I, "I'm ower frae Auchtermuchty,
tae the market wi' some swine."
Noo, I took her tae a sittin' room,
a wee bit doon the burn;
It's true what Robbie Burns said,
"A man was made to m'urn."
She'd four hot pies and porter,
she ate them baith galore;
She ate and drank as much hersel'
as an elephant for a year.
O then we baith get up the stair
to hae a contented sleep [night],
When an a'ful knock cam to the door
at the breakin' o' the light.
O it was a big fat bobby,
he got me by the top o' the hair,
And he give me the whirlijig richt
doon to the foot o' the stair.
Noo, I get up the stair again,
I was seekin' oot my claes,
"You'd better gang oot o' this, young man,
or I'll gie ye sixty days."
"O but," I says, "I've lost my waistcoat,
my watch chain, and my purse."
Says she, "I've lost my maidenhead
and that's a damn sight worse!"
Noo, there is a maid upon oor fairm,
she is a dainty dame.
She milks the kye at earlty morn,
anither time it's cream.
O, there is a cattleman on the fairm,
he has a wooden leg.
And he darts aboot from barn to byre,
a-suckin' milkie eggs.
There is a man upon the fairm,
Paul Gartall is his name.
And he'll tak all the pints you gie him,
but he will pay for nane.
Noo, I'll go back to Auchtermuchty
an' contented I will be,
For the breakin' o' my five-pound note
wi' a lassie in Dundee.