The young gentleman who is said to have brought food to Bessy and Mary is sometimes described as the lover of both, sometimes as the lover of one of the pair. Pennant says that the ballad was “composed by a lover deeply stricken with the charms of both.” In the course of tradition, the lover is said to have perished with the young women, which we might expect to happen if he brought the contagion to the bower. But this lover, who ought to have had his place in the song, appears only in tradition, and his reality may be called in question. It is not rational that the young women should seclude themselves to avoid the pest and then take the risk of the visits of a person from the seat of the infection.[56] To be sure it may be doubted, notwithstanding the tenor of the ballad, whether the retirement of these young ladies was voluntary, or at least whether they had not taken the plague before they removed to their bower. In that case the risk would have been for the lover, and would have been no more than he might naturally assume.[57] * * * * * 1 O Bessie Bell and Mary Gray, They war twa bonnie lasses; They bigget a bower on yon burn-brae, And theekit it oer wi rashes. 2 They theekit it oer wi rashes green, They theekit it oer wi heather; But the pest cam frae the burrows-town, And slew them baith thegither. 3 They thought to lye in Methven kirk-yard, Amang their noble kin; But they maun lye in Stronach haugh, To biek forenent the sin. 4 And Bessy Bell and Mary Gray, They war twa bonnie lasses; They biggit a bower on yon burn-brae, And theekit it oer wi rashes. * * * * * #a.# _In eight-line stanzas._ #b.# 1^3. house _for_ bower. 2^1. wi birk and brume. 2^3. Till the: frae the neibrin. 2^4. An streekit. 3^1. They were na buried in. 3^2. Amang the rest o their kin. 3^3. they were buried by Dornoch-haugh. 3^4. On the bent before. 4^1. Sing _for_ And. 4^3. Wha _for_ They. 4^4. wi thrashes. #c.# 1^1. O _wanting._ 2. _Wanting._ 3^1. They wadna rest in Methvin kirk. 3^2. gentle kin. 3^3. But they wad lie in Lednoch braes. 3^4. beek against. 4. _Wanting._ 202 THE BATTLE OF PHILIPHAUGH Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, III, 153, 1803, II, 166, 1833; “preserved by tradition in Selkirkshire.”