Digital Tradition Mirror

The Male Female Highwayman

(This score available as ABC, SongWright, PostScript, PNG, or PMW, or a MIDI file)
Pennywhistle notation and Dulcimer tab for this song is also available

The Male Female Highwayman

It's of a female highwayman all on a summer's day
She said a frolic I will have and dress in man's array
And I'll ride out along the lea
And hope my true love I shall see
And there I'll test his constancy
With a female highwayman.

cho: With a female highwayman
     With a female highwayman
   --last two lines of verse--

And so this female highwayman has mounted on a horse
And she's rode out and there she's met her true love, of course
"Stand and deliver sir", she said,
"Or if you don't I'll shoot you dead
Or would you rather come to bed
With a female highwayman?"

So they jogged on together till they came unto an inn
And there they called an ostler and boldly they walked in
They called for liquors of the best,
They went upstairs and got undressed
What happened next can ne'er be guessed
To the female highwayman

For she's pulled off her breeches and likewise her jacket red
She's taken off her velvet cape and lay upon the bed.
Her true love in amazement stands
It seems the end of all his plans
For she has proved to be a man
This female highwayman.

Her true love stands like one amazed and at her did stare
But when the joke he did find out he loudly did declare:
"Fear not my love, it's time to smile"
He threw his clothes down in a pile
He was a female all the while
For the female highwayman

DT #451
RG

Thanks to Mudcat for the Digital Tradition!