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I'm very sorry, gentlemen, you called on me to sing,
For I can well assure you that I can do no such thing,
But since you have a-called on me I'll try my best to do,
And when I come to the chorus I hope you'll join me too,
Oh I'll hope you'll join me too.
I fell a-courting of a cook, I'll tell you the reason why,
'Cause when I did get hungry she would give me reply,
Because when I was hungry she would give me relief,
She fed me on the best of pies and plenty of fat beef,
Oh and plenty of fat beef.
She invited me to a supper, I quickly gave consent,
Along with her that very night to the master's house I went,
The master he was not at home and I was much displeased,
For one pocket she filled with butter and the other she stuffed with cheese,
And the other she stuffed with cheese.
Then after my supper was over and I could eat no more,
Right to my sad surprise a knock came at the door,
And where to go and hide myself, by gosh I did not know,
It was up in the chimney top I went so black as any old crow,
Oh so black as any old crow.
They then put on a rousing fire and almost touched my knees,
It melted all my butter and it roasted all my cheese.
The master he was standing by, he thought the Rogue was there,
For every time the butter did drop the fire went up in a flare,
Oh, the fire went up in a flare.
Then out in the street I had to go, my shameful face to show,
My butter and cheese all melted, and I so black as a crow.
The dogs began to bark at me and the women began to squall,
The boys looked out of the window, there goes butter and cheese and all,
There goes butter and cheese and all!
This variant was collected in 1959 from Mrs. Clara Stevens of Bellburns, NL, by Ken Peacock and published in Songs Of The Newfoundland Outports, Volume 1, pp.251-252, by The National Museum Of Canada (1965) Crown Copyrights Reserved.
A variant was collected from Alexander March (1865-1953) of Port au Port, NL, and also published as Butter And Cheese in MacEdward Leach And The Songs Of Atlantic Canada © 2004 Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive (MUNFLA).
Kenneth Peacock noted that this is a music-hall type ditty popular in the mid-nineteenth century and possibly before. It appeared in a collection called Owen Fawcett's Paul Pry Songster, published by A. Winch (Philadelphia) in 1869, and archived in the Owen Fawcett Theatre Collection (1858-1903) in the Special Collections Library of the University of Tennesee, Knoxville, Series VI, Subseries B, shelfmark: M1628.F38.
