Our Gude Man- (MA) 1840s Whittier
A stanza was published in Yankee Gypsies by John Greenleaf Whittier in the 1840s. In Michael Cohen's article, Peddlers, Poems, and Local Culture: The Case of Jonathan Plummer, a "Balladmonger" in Nineteenth-Century New England, he says:
In "Yankee Gypsies," an essay first published in the 1840s, John Greenleaf Whittier describes a mode of itinerancy that characterized rural life during the first decades of the nineteenth century. According to his essay, life on the Whittier family's isolated farm in Haverhill, Massachusetts, was periodically enlivened by the appearance of a collection of types who interrupted farm routine by begging, preaching, peddling, singing, or sleeping in the barn.
This stanza originating from the early 1800s and possibly earlier is taken from Yankee Gypsies. Whittier cites Herd's version (Child A) in a footnote. Here's the excerpt from Yankee Gypsies:
Another wanderer made us acquainted with the humorous old ballad of "Our gude man cam hame at e'en." He applied for supper and lodging, and the next morning was set at work splitting stones in the pasture. While thus engaged the village doctor came riding along the highway on his fine, spirited horse, and stopped to talk with my father. The fellow eyed the animal attentively, as if familiar with all his good points, and hummed over a stanza of the old poem:--
"Our gude man cam hame at e'en,
And hame cam he;
And there he saw a saddle horse
Where nae horse should be.
'How cam this horse here?
How can it be?
How cam this horse here
Without the leave of me?'
'A horse?' quo she.
'Ay, a horse,' quo he.
'Ye auld fool, ye blind fool,--
And blinder might ye be,--
'T is naething but a milking cow
My mamma sent to me.'
'A milch cow?' quo he.
'Ay, a milch cow,' quo she.
'Weel, far hae I ridden,
And muckle hae I seen;
But milking cows wi' saddles on
Saw I never nane.'"(3)