_Glaud._ What's that to you?--Gae get my Sunday's coat; Wale out the whitest of my bobbit bands, My white-skin hose, and mittons for my hands; Then frae their washing, cry the bairns in haste, And make yoursells as trig, head, feet, and waist, As ye were a' to get young lads or e'en; For we're gaun o'er to dine with Sym bedeen. _Sym._ Do, honest Madge:--And, Glaud, I'll o'er the gate, And see that a' be done as I wad hae't. [_Exeunt._ _ACT II.--SCENE II._ The open field.--A cottage in a glen, An auld wife spinning at the sunny end.-- At a small distance, by a blasted tree, With falded arms, and haff rais'd look, ye see BAULDY his lane. BAULDY. What's this!--I canna bear't! 'tis war than hell, To be sae burnt with love, yet darna tell! O Peggy, sweeter than the dawning day, Sweeter than gowany glens, or new mawn hay; Blyther than lambs that frisk out o'er the knows; Straighter than ought that in the forest grows: Her een the clearest blob of dew outshines; The lilly in her breast its beauty tines. Her legs, her arms, her cheeks, her mouth, her een, Will be my dead, that will be shortly seen! For Pate loes her,--waes me! and she loes Pate; And I with Neps, by some unlucky fate, Made a daft vow:--O but ane be a beast That makes rash aiths till he's afore the priest! I dare na speak my mind, else a' the three, But doubt, wad prove ilk ane my enemy. 'Tis sair to thole;--I'll try some witchcraft art, To break with ane, and win the other's heart. Here Mausy lives, a witch, that for sma' price Can cast her cantrips, and give me advice. She can o'ercast the night, and cloud the moon, And mak the deils obedient to her crune. At midnight hours, o'er the kirk-yards she raves, And howks unchristen'd we'ans out of their graves; Boils up their livers in a warlock's pow, Rins withershins about the hemlock low; And seven times does her prayers backward pray, Till Plotcock comes with lumps of Lapland clay, Mixt with the venom of black taids and snakes; Of this unsonsy pictures aft she makes Of ony ane she hates--and gars expire With slaw and racking pains afore a fire; Stuck fu' of prins, the devilish pictures melt, The pain, by fowk they represent, is felt. And yonder's Mause: Ay, ay, she kens fu' well, When ane like me comes rinning to the deil. She and her cat sit beeking in her yard, To speak my errand, faith amaist I'm fear'd: But I maun do't, tho' I should never thrive; They gallop fast that deils and lasses drive. [_Exit._ _ACT II.--SCENE III._ A green kail-yard, a little fount, Where water poplan springs; There sits a wife with wrinkled-front, And yet she spins and sings. SANG IX.--_Tune_, Carle an the King come. MAUSE sings.