with critical observations and biographical notices, by Robert Burns

59
But we puir folk maun live single,
And do the best we can
I dinna care what I should want,
If I could but get a man."
fVoo'd and married and a%
Woo^d and married and a\
Was she not very weel aff,
Was woo'd and married a\
MUIRLAND WILLIE.
This lightsome ballad gives a particular draW'
ing of those ruthless times " whan thieves were rife,"
and the lads went a wooing in their warlike habili-
mentSf not knowing whether they would tilt with lips
or lances. Willie's dark and pistols were buckled
on for this uncertain encounter, and not for gar-
nishing and adorning his person.^
* Though such iron-mitten'd handling now looks rude and
familiar to the fashionable eye, yet we may deem ourselves the
descendants of such lusty lovers ; and that ouv great great grand-
mothers were touzled by fingers perhaps as rude as the sheep-
imearing hands of good Miiirland Willie, The worthy old cot-
tars