A maid, Meggie, inquires after her lover, Willie, and is told that he will be with her at night. Willie tirls the pin and is admitted. He is given the option of cards, wine, or bed, and chooses the bed, a too familiar commonplace in Buchan's ballads. Meggie charges the cock not to crow till day, but the cock crows an hour too soon. Willie dons his clothes, and in a dowie den encounters a grievous ghost, which, wan and weary though it be, smiles upon him; smiles, we may suppose, to have caught him. Willie has travelled this road often, and never uttered a prayer for safety; but he will never travel that road again. The ghost tears him to pieces, and hangs a bit 'on every seat' of Mary's kirk, the head right over Meggie's pew! Meggie rives her yellow hair.
The first half of this piece is a medley of 'Sweet William's Ghost,' 'Clerk Saunders,' and 'The Grey Cock.' For 13-6, 2, compare No 77, A, E, 2, 3, No 248, 1; for 5-8, No 69, F 3-6, No 70, B 2, 4; for 9, 10, No 248, 6, 7. 13 is caught, or taken, from 'Clyde's Water,' No 216, A 7.
Stanzas 15-17, wherever they came from, are too good for the setting: nothing so spirited, word or deed, could have been looked for from a ghost wan, weary, and smiling.
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