Game of Cards

According to Malcolm Douglas at mudcat.org, this set of words (with 'Leicester' rather than 'Warwick' and the second half of each verse repeated) was collected from the singing of Charlie Wills of Dorset by Peter Kennedy in 1952. The tune can be found, with slightly different words, on p. 35 of Frank Purslow's Marrow Bones - English Folk Songs from the Hammond and Gardiner Mss., collected from William Randall of Hampshire in 1905. 

Maddy Prior and June Tabor put these words to this tune on their 1976 album Silly Sisters.  Tabor was, incidentally, born in Warwick.

 

As I was a-walking one midsummer's morning
I heard the birds whistle and the nightingales play
And there did I spy a beautiful maiden
As I was a-walking all on the highway

Oh, where are you going, my fair pretty lady?
Oh, where are you going so early this morn?
She said, I'm going down to visit my neighbours
I'm going down to Warwick, the place I was born

It's may I go with you, my sweet pretty darling?
May I go along in your sweet company?
Then she turned her head and smiling all at me
Saying, You may come with me, kind sir, if you please

We hadn't been walking but a few miles together
Before this young damsel began to show free
She sat herself down, saying, Sit down beside me
And the games we shall play shall be one, two and three

I said, My dear lady, if you're fond of the gaming
There's one game I know I would like you to learn
The game it is called The Game of All Fours
So I took out my pack and began the first turn

She cut the cards first and I fell a-dealing
I dealt her the trump and myself the poor jack
She led off her ace and stole my jack from me
Saying, Jack is the card I like best in your pack

Since I dealt them last time, it's your turn to shuffle
And my turn to show the best card in the pack
Once more, she'd the ace and the deuce for to beat me
Once again, I had lost when I laid down poor Jack

So I took up my hat and I bid her good morning
I said, You're the best that I know at this game
She answered, Young man, if you'll come back tomorrow
We'll play the game over and over again!