LITMIR.BIZ

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       I was na fou, but just had plenty;

       I stacher'd whiles, but yet too tent aye

       To free the ditches;

       An' hillocks, stanes, an' bushes, kenn'd eye

       Frae ghaists an' witches.

       The rising moon began to glowre

       The distant Cumnock hills out-owre:

       To count her horns, wi' a my pow'r,

       I set mysel';

       But whether she had three or four,

       I cou'd na tell.

       I was come round about the hill,

       An' todlin down on Willie's mill,

       Setting my staff wi' a' my skill,

       To keep me sicker;

       Tho' leeward whiles, against my will,

       I took a bicker.

       I there wi' Something did forgather,

       That pat me in an eerie swither;

       An' awfu' scythe, out-owre ae shouther,

       Clear-dangling, hang;

       A three-tae'd leister on the ither

       Lay, large an' lang.

       Its stature seem'd lang Scotch ells twa,

       The queerest shape that e'er I saw,

       For fient a wame it had ava;

       And then its shanks,

       They were as thin, as sharp an' sma'

       As cheeks o' branks.

       “Guid-een,” quo' I; “Friend! hae ye been mawin,

       When ither folk are busy sawin!”^1

       I seem'd to make a kind o' stan'

       But naething spak;

       At length, says I, “Friend! whare ye gaun?

       Will ye go back?”

       It spak right howe—“My name is Death,

       But be na fley'd.”—Quoth I, “Guid faith,

       Ye're maybe come to stap my breath;

       But tent me, billie;

       I red ye weel, tak care o' skaith

       See, there's a gully!”

       “Gudeman,” quo' he, “put up your whittle,

       I'm no designed to try its mettle;

       But if I did, I wad be kittle

       To be mislear'd;

       I wad na mind it, no that spittle

       Out-owre my beard.”

       “Weel, weel!” says I, “a bargain be't;

       Come, gie's your hand, an' sae we're gree't;

       We'll ease our shanks an tak a seat—

       Come, gie's your news;

       This while ye hae been mony a gate,

       At mony a house.”^2

       [Footnote 1: This recontre happened in seed-time, 1785.—R.B.]

       [Footnote 2: An epidemical fever was then raging in that

       country.—R.B.]

       “Ay, ay!” quo' he, an' shook his head,

       “It's e'en a lang, lang time indeed

       Sin' I began to nick the thread,

       An' choke the breath:

       Folk maun do something for their bread,

       An' sae maun Death.

       “Sax thousand years are near-hand fled

       Sin' I was to the butching bred,

       An' mony a scheme in vain's been laid,

       To stap or scar me;

       Till ane Hornbook's^3 ta'en up the trade,

       And faith! he'll waur me.

       “Ye ken Hornbook i' the clachan,

       Deil mak his king's-hood in spleuchan!

       He's grown sae weel acquaint wi' Buchan^4

       And ither chaps,

       The weans haud out their fingers laughin,

       An' pouk my hips.

       “See, here's a scythe, an' there's dart,

       They hae pierc'd mony a gallant heart;

       But Doctor Hornbook, wi' his art

       An' cursed skill,

       Has made them baith no worth a f-t,

       Damn'd haet they'll kill!

       “'Twas but yestreen, nae farther gane,

       I threw a noble throw at ane;

       Wi' less, I'm sure, I've hundreds slain;

       But deil-ma-care,

       It just play'd dirl on the bane,

       But did nae mair.

       “Hornbook was by, wi' ready art,

       An' had sae fortify'd the part,

       [Footnote 3: This gentleman, Dr. Hornbook, is professionally

       a brother of the sovereign Order of the Ferula; but, by

       intuition and inspiration, is at once an apothecary,

       surgeon, and physician.—R.B.]

       [Footnote 4: Burchan's Domestic Medicine.—R.B.]

       That when I looked to my dart,

       It was sae blunt,

       Fient haet o't wad hae pierc'd the heart

       Of a kail-runt.

       “I drew my scythe in sic a fury,

       I near-hand cowpit wi' my hurry,

       But yet the bauld Apothecary

       Withstood the shock;

       I might as weel hae tried a quarry

       O' hard whin rock.

       “Ev'n them he canna get attended,

       Altho' their face he ne'er had kend it,

       Just—in a kail-blade, an' sent it,

       As soon's he smells 't,

       Baith their disease, and what will mend it,

       At once he tells 't.

       “And then, a' doctor's saws an' whittles,

       Of a' dimensions, shapes, an' mettles,

       A' kind o' boxes, mugs, an' bottles,

       He's sure to hae;

       Their Latin names as fast he rattles

       as A B C.

       “Calces o' fossils, earths, and trees;

       True sal-marinum o' the seas;

       The farina of beans an' pease,

       He has't in plenty;

       Aqua-fontis, what you please,

       He can content ye.

       “Forbye some new, uncommon weapons,

       Urinus spiritus of capons;

       Or mite-horn shavings, filings, scrapings,

       Distill'd per se;

       Sal-alkali o' midge-tail clippings,

       And mony mae.”

       “Waes me for Johnie Ged's^5 Hole now,”

       Quoth I, “if that thae

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