Paddy's rambles/Lawrie O'Broom's Rambles from Ireland to Scotland

For other versions of this work, see Lawrie O'Broom's Rambles from Ireland to Scotland.

LAWRIE O’BROOM’S RAMBLES FROM
IRELAND TO SCOTLAND.

THE trade it is bad, now good people I hear;
⁠and my name it is Lawrie O’Broom, Sir,
My father he died, left me all that he had,
⁠t’was a good breeding sow and a loom, Sir.

I lived quite happy a very short space,
Till I married a wife, who soon alter’d the case,
She blackened my eyes, and spat in my face;
It was tight times for Lawrie O’Broom, Sir.

I thought to myself this would not long do,
⁠my passion no longer could smother;
I instantly sold off my loom and my sow,
⁠and sent the jade home to her mother.

And then for old Scotland I straightway did steer;
To leave that sweet place I once lov’d so dear,
With grief in my bosom, was ready to tear
⁠The heart out of Lawrie O’Broom, Sir.

I shoulder’d my cudgel and bundle again,
⁠my figure being one of the oddest;
I did not weel ken the right road frae the wrang,
⁠but held to the road that was broadest.

Till at length I arriv’d at Donaghadee,
And to my surprise laid me close on the sea,
I wish’d for the wings of a swallow to flee;
⁠What a tight bird was Lawrie O’Broom, Sir.

They hois’d me on board of a tight little smack,
⁠amongst a parcel of jovial gay fellows;
I rous’d up my heart, and I sang Paddy Whack,
⁠as we steer’d o.’er the turbulent billows.

Till at length I got sea-sick, was ready to die,
And the meat in my belly was spung’d quite dry
Whilst I lay besmear’d like a pig in a stye;
⁠For a doctor cryed Lawrie O’Broom, Sir.

I bounc’d up on deck, to view Ireland once more,
⁠which was a dangerous risk of my neck, Sir.
I ran up the mast ladder to view Hibernia’s shore
, ⁠and then I was far above deck, Sir.

When I found that old Ireland was out of my view,
I was forced to come down by the captain and crew,
I thought on my wife, my loom, and my sow,
⁠But far distant was Lawrie O’Broom, Sir.

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.