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"Jock looked at the cat and observed obscurely, 'It's not a sentimental beast either' while Jean asked if I would have preferred it called Sir Rabindranath Tagore!" "O, the land is fine, fine, I could buy it a' for mine, For ma gowd's as the stooks in Strathairlie." Scots Song.
When I sailed ower the sea, A laddie bold and free, The corn sprang green on Strathairlie! When I come back again, It's an auld man walks his lane Slow and sad ower the fields o' Strathairlie. O' the shearers that I see No' a body kens me, Though I kent them a' in Strathairlie; An' the fisher-wife I pass, Can she be the braw lass I kissed at the back o' Strathairlie?
"I can sing Scots songs in a way, but I have a voice about as big as a sparrow's. If it would amuse you I'll try." So Jean sat down to the piano and sang "Proud Maisie," and "Colin's Cattle," and one or two other old songs. "I wonder," said Peter Reid, "if you know a song my mother used to sing 'Strathairlie'?" "Indeed I do. It's one I like very much. I have it here in this little book."
Peter rubbed himself against her legs by way of comfort. "My dear," said Pamela, "is there anything wrong?" "Oh, do you remember the little old man who came one day to look at the house and stayed to tea and I sang 'Strathairlie' to him? He's dead." Jean's tears flowed afresh as she said the words. "How I wish I had been kinder to him. I somehow felt he was ill."
I am obliged to you for your hospitality, especially for singing me 'Strathairlie. I never thought to hear it again. I wonder if I might trouble you to write me out the words." "But take the book," said Jean, running to get it and pressing it into his hands. "Perhaps you'll find other songs in it you used to know and like. Take it to keep."
She struck a few simple chords and began to sing: it was a lilting, haunting tune, and the words were "old and plain." "O, the lift is high and blue, And the new mune glints through, On the bonnie corn-fields o' Strathairlie; Ma ship's in Largo Bay, And I ken weel the way Up the steep, steep banks o' Strathairlie.
O, the land is fine, fine, I could buy it a' for mine, For ma gowd's as the stooks in Strathairlie; But I fain the lad would be Wha sailed ower the saut sea When the dawn rose grey on Strathairlie." Jean rose from the piano. Jock had got out his books and had begun his lessons. Mhor and Peter were under the table playing at being cave-men. Pamela was stitching at her embroidery.
But he looked so lonely and lost somehow, and he doesn't seem to have anyone belonging to him, and I was sorry for him." "And so you gave him that song-book you value so much?" "Yes," said Jean, looking rather ashamed. "But," she brightened, "he seemed pleased, don't you think? It's a pretty song, 'Strathairlie, but it's not a pukka old one it's early Victorian."
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