The youngest (eldest, A) and fairest of the daughters of the Earl of Wigton, A, F (bonniest of his sisters, B), has fallen in love with her footman, Kichie Story (Tory). Richie brings her a letter from a nobleman who desires to be her suitor; the Earl of Hume, A, B, F, G a, d, e; the Earl of Hume's son, D; the Earl of Aboyne, B; of Cumbernauld, G b; of Mohun, G c; of Wemyss, G f and a variant of E; the Earls of Hume and Skimmerjim, Skimmerham (Kimmerghame), C. The lady has made a vow, and will keep it, to marry none but Richie. Richie deprecates; he has nothing to maintain her with; she is ready to descend to the lowest fortune. (In several versions she has enough of her own. Hunten Tour and Tillebarn and the House of Athol are hers, B; Musselbtirgh, C; the House of Athol and Taranadie, G d; Blair-in-Athol and Dunkeld, H.) Asked by her sister, by Richie, or by some one else, whether she is not sorry to have left Curabernauld (Castle Norry, G f) to follow a footman, she answers that there is no reason, she has her heart's desire and the lot that was ordained her. As she goes up the Parliament close, rides through Edinburgh town, Glasgow city (London city, C b, absurdly), she is greeted by many a lord, but few or none of them thought she was a footman's lady. Arrived at the domicile of the Storys, her good-mother bids her, gars her, kilt up her coats and muck the byres with Richie.
F, G, are not satisfied with this conclusion. The footman is really a lover in disguise, the Earl of Hume or of Cumbernauld, F, G a b. (G b 2 spoils the plot by making the Earl of Hume write to the lady that he will be her footman-laddie.) Four-and-twenty gentlemen welcome the bride at Ritchie's gates, or elsewhere, and she blesses the day that she was Richie's lady. This is incontestably a later invention.
G f, which is otherwise embellished, goes a good step beyond G a-e. Richie is an Englishman and takes the lady to London. 'Madam' has left her kindred to gang with a servant; he has 'left the sceptre and the crown' her servant for to be; little she knew that her waiting-man was England's royal king.
"Lillias Fleming, second daughter of John, Earl of Wigton by his wife Jane Drummond (a daughter of the Earl of Perth), did elope with and marry one of her father's servants, named Richard Storry. In 1673, she, with consent of her husband, resigned her portion, consisting of the five-merk land of Smythson, etc., in the barony of Lenzie, into the hands of her brother, Lieutenant-Colonel Fleming. The Fleming family afterwards procured for Richie a situation in the Custom-House." So Hunter, Biggar and the House of Fleming, p. 555, and, in part, Douglas's Peerage, where, however, Lady Lillias is said to have married Richard Storry, "Esq.:" ed. Wood, II, 616.
Douglas notes that "John, third Earl of Wigton, ... had a charter of the lordship of Cumbernauld, 1st February, 1634." This place (Comarnad, Campernadie, etc., B, D, G a, c, d) is in Dumbartonshire. In F 11 it is attributed to the young Earl of Hume, and the disguised lover is the Earl of Cumbernauld in G b.
The lady, ready for any extremity, says in F 6 that she will lie ayont a dyke (on the other side of a wall), in B 6 sit below the dyke, in D 5 sit aneath the duke, and that she will be at Richie's command at all times. This matter was not understood by the reciter of B, and in B 7 the lady is made to say, We will go to sea, I'll sit upon the deck (and be your servant, as in the other cases). In A the difficulty, such as it is, seems to have been evaded, and we read, 6, I'll live whereer you please (and be ready at your call late or early).
For the relation of this ballad to 'Huntingtower' and 'The Duke of Athol,' see an appendix.
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