Auchtertool.
[Written by Alex. Wilson of Paisley, the author of "Watty and Meg," and the great ornithologist of America. This was a youthful production of Wilson's, and seems to have been occasioned by certain inhospitable treatment which he had received at Auchtertool, a small village in Fifeshire, while travelling the country as a pedlar. His experience of the fatigues of a pedlar's life, and of the indignities to which it was occasionally exposed, was only fitting him all the better for his afterwards glorious career—when he I had to travel through immeasurable tracts of the woods of America, in search of his favourite birds, and subject himself to the unsympathising rudeness of the early settlers there, who could not comprehend the enthusiasm, or be brought to patronize the exertions, of the young naturalist. The song is marked, in the volume of his poems published at Paisley in 1790, to the tune of "One bottle more."]
From the village of Lesly with a heart full of glee,
And my pack on my shoulders, I rambled out free,
Resolved that same evening, as Luna was full,
To lodge ten miles distant, in old Auchtertool.
Through many a lone cottage and farm-house I steer'd,
Took their money,and off with my budget I sheer'd;
The road I explored out, without form or rule,
Still asking the nearest to old Auchtertool.
A clown I accosted, inquiring the road,
He stared like an idiot, then roar'd out, "Gude G-d!
Gin ye're ga'n there for quarters, ye're surely a fool,
For there's nought but starvation in auld Auchtertool!"
Unminding his nonsense, my march I pursued,
Till I came to a hill top, where joyful I viev'd,
Surrounded with mountains, and many a white pool,
The small smoky village of old Auchtertool.
At length I arrived at the edge of the town,
As Phœbus behind a high mountain went down;
The clouds gather'd dreary, and weather blew foul,
And I hugg'd myself safe now in old Auchtertool.
An inn I inquired out, a lodging desired,
But the Landlady's pertness seem'd instantly fired;
For she saucy replied, as she sat carding wool,
"I ne'er kept sic lodgers in auld Auchtertool."
With scorn I soon left her to live on her pride;
But, asking, was told, there was none else beside,
Except an old Weaver, who now kept a school,
And these were the whole that were in Auchtertool.
To his mansion I scamper'd, and rapt at the door,
He op'd, but as soon as I dared to implore,
He shut it like thunder, and utter'd a howl,
That rung thro' each corner of old Auchtertool.
Provoked now to fury, the Dominie I curst,
And offer'd to cudgel the wretch, if he durst;
But the door he fast bolted, tho' Boreas blew cool,
And left me all friendless in old Auchtertool.
Deprived of all shelter, through darkness I trod,
Till I came to a ruin'd old house by the road;
Here the night I will spend, and, inspired by the owl,
I'll send up some prayers for old Auchtertool.