Page:Beauties of Burn's poems.pdf/12

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I red ye weel tak care o' skaith,
See, there's a gully!

Gudeman, quo' he, put up your whittle,
I'm no design'd to try its mettle;
But if I did, it was be kittle
To be mislear'd,
I wadina mind it, no that spittle
Out-owre my beard.

Weel, weel, says I, a bargain be't;
Come, gies your hand, and sae we're greet;
We'll ease our shanks and tak a seat:
Come gies your news;
This while^[1] ye hae been mony a gate,
At mony a house.

Ay, ay! quo he, and shook his head,
It's e'en a lang, lang time indeed,
Sin' I began to nick the thread,
And choke the breath:
Fock maun do something for their bread,
And she maun Death.

Six thousand years are nearhand fled,
Sin' I was to the batching bred;
And mony a scheme in vain's been laid
To stap or scar me;
Till ane Hornbook's^[2] taen up the trade,
And faith he'll waur me.

1. An epidemical fever was then raging in that country.
2. This Gentleman, Dr. Hornbook, is professionably a brother of the Sovereign Order of the