Love in a hayband

From Thomas Hudson's 1st Collection of Comic Songs (1818) 

LOVE IN A HAYBAND.
SUNG BY THE LATE MR. EMERY.
Tune.-“ Legacy."

Did  you ever hear one Richard Short's history?
If you didn't I'll tell it you now;
All over our parts it was thought quite a mystery,
He was a young man that follow'd the plough.
But he got tired of that kind of life did,
Was hired as hostler at sign of the Crown,
Fell in love with the maid, want her for a wife did,
'Twas very well known to all folk in our town!

This lass Nelly Long, she was dressish and dapper,
And tho'f our Dick was a good looking lad;
She snubb'd him and scoff'd him, for she was a snapper,
And told him quite plump that she warn’t to be had,
For she lov’d a man much more handsome and bigger,
And he came fra’ Lunnon, and wasn't a clown;
His name it was Sly, and he was a grave digger,
And very well known to all th' folk in our town !

As Nelly right flat-like his wife did refuse to be,
Richard he lost all his comfort and hope;
And said, As he didn't feel like what he used to be,
He'd hang himself if he could find him a rope.
He hunted about, while with love he did falter,
But the devil a rope could he find up nor down;
So he twisted a hay band, and made him a halter,
'Twas very well known to all th’ folks in our town.

He hung himself up to a tree in a meadow,
He felt all over he didn't know how;
His neck was a stretching, but's feet couldn't tread O!
When up came by chance Farmer Giles's old cow ;
She smelt at the hay, and caught hold of the band fast,
Pluck'd out a mouthful, which brought Dicky down;
He jump'd on his legs, and away then he ran fast,
And was never more seen by th' folks in our town.

Now mark what a judgment came on that lass Nelly,
For being so hard-hearted to that poor lad;
She by the grave-digger got stout about belly,
And he run away, leaving her all so sad.
She (when too late) found that she was betray'd, and
Relations they all turn'd their backs with a frown!
She laid in, and her boy it was mark'd with a hayband,
'Twas very well known to all th' folks in our town.

A song written by Thomas Hudson (1791- 1844) a song-writer and performer active in the singing taverns and supper rooms that influenced the early Music Hall in London. This song was written for performance by Mr Emery, a prominent theatre actor – so strictly speaking not a Music Hall song.

Like many of Hudson’s songs this one survives in multiple 19th century broadsheets and songbooks, usually appearing under the title Love in a hayband, but sometimes under one or other of the alternative titles above. (A hayband is a rope made of straw)

Several of Hudson’s songs were remembered by traditional singers whose songs were picked up by folk song collectors in the late 19th and early 20th century. This one was collected by Lucy Broadwood from the singing of Samuel Willett in 1891. It also appears in one of the notebooks of Sabine Baring Gould, made in the 1880s/90s – William Knapman had sent him a song called Dicky Short’s Sad Story– Gould’s notes make it clear he recognised it as a Hudson song: