BAULDY. "What's this?--I canna bear't!--'tis worse than hell, To be sae burnt with love, yet daurna 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 aught that in the forest grows; Her een the clearest blob of dew outshines; The lily 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 looes her--waes me!--and she looes 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 darna 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 cantraips, and gie me advice. She can o'ercast the night, and cloud the moon, And make the deils obedient to her crune; At midnight hours, o'er the kirk-yard she raves, And howks unchristen'd weans 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 backwards 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 slow and racking pains afore a fire, Stuck fu' of pins; the devilish pictures melt; The pain by fowk they represent is felt. And yonder's Mause: Ay, ay, she kens fu' weel, 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. * * * * * How does auld honest lucky of the glen? Ye look baith hale end fair at threescore-ten. MAUSE. E'en twining out a thread with little din, And beeking my cauld limbs afore the sun. What brings my bairn this gate sae air at morn? Is there nae muck to lead? to thresh nae corn? BAULDY. Enough of baith: but something that requires Your helping hand employs now all my cares. MAUSE. My helping hand! alake, what can I do, That underneith baith eild and poortith bow? BAULDY. Ay, but you're wise, and wiser far than we; Or maist part of the parish tells a lie. MAUSE. Of what kind wisdom think ye I'm possest, That lifts my character aboon the rest?