6
At four in the morning we came to Stranraer,
when the people were ail fast asleep, Sir,
The streets I rambled all up and down,
till a centry I chanc’d for to meet, Sir.
He ask’d me my name, trade, and place of abode,
I told him I was a weaver just travelling the road;
And the name that my father had on me bestow’d,
I told him was Lawrie O’Broom, Sir.
The Sportsman he took a light peep at my dress,
and then he began for to prate, Sir,
Saying how does the cropies in Ireland now do,
And whether the number got many or few,
The d-v-l a cropie nor Ireland I knew,
I am a Scotchman, said Lawrie O’broom, Sir.
O he said I was a cropie by the cut of my hair,
Which left me in tears for to wander;
I instantly tost up his heels in the air,
And laid him as flat as a flounder.
Whilst he like a paddock did sprawl on the ground,
I ran like a hare in front of a hound,
While the hills and the valleys did echo around,
with the people crying Lawrie O’Broom, Sir.
