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216 Gaelic Society of Inverness.
—
Boichoad 'us buidheacl do chuailoan
'S do dlia f;l)ruaidh mar chaor air mhoangan
Ho, hi kc.
'S buidlie 'n id da 'n tug thu luaidh
Ged Ithuilicheadh i buaile mhart ort.
Ho hi &c.
A's god a bhuilichoadh i tri ort
Air learn fhein nach ni gun fhear e.
Ho hi itc.
The next I will mention is my own maternal grandmother,
Mary Cameron, for whom I am named, who was well-known in
Sunart and Lochaber as a sweet poetess, and as a gentlewoman of
great refinement of feeling, and unbounded charity. She was the
Mary of whom Ailean Dall sang so sweetly
—
" Na 'm faighinn gill' airson ceannach
A bheireadh beannachd gu Mairi.''
Ailean Dall was not the lover represented in the song: it was a
farmer from Sunart district, but Mary, with the usual unwisdom
of the poet, chose to elope with a much poorer man, in her 19th
year, I will give the following few sjiecimens of her verses.
One day when she had, to her great annoyance, to leave her
spinning wheel, and her household cares to keep some sheep away
from the corn whilst the shepherd, whose duty it was to tend them,
was spending the hours in dalliance with his lady-love, who was the
housekeeper of a bachelor farmer near at hand, and who was wont
to regale lier wooer with the best she had in lier pantry, my grandmother
found vent to her feelings in a song of which the
following is a fragment :
Oh ho ro 'ille dhuinn.
'Hie dhuinn bhoidhich,
Na ho ro 'ille dhuinn
Gu'm bheil mise fo mhulad
'S mo chuidheal na h-aonar
Oh ho ro (fcc.
Mo leanaban a' caoineadh
'S nach faod mi bhi 'n coir dhoibh,
Oh ho ro &c.
;