[A composite volume : containing The ballads and songs of Ayrshire ...

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SCOFFING BALLAD.
Their fury rose to sic a height
He dared not pass in town the night,
But aflf to Irvine took his flight,
Good people, hear my ditty.
Followed with hisses, yells, and groans,
With missiles struck, even dirt and stones,
While he their wicked rage bemoans,
Good people, hear my ditty.
And took a house in that quiet place.
Till ance then* madness and disgrace
Would yield to better sense and grace,
Good people, hear my ditty.
The induction of the Rev. Mr Lindsay, to the parish church of Kilmarnock,
was effected against the will of the people. Bums, in his
poem of " The Ordination," composed on the settlement of the Rev.
Mr Mackinlay in Kilmarnock in 1786, says
" Curst common sense, ttat imp o' hell,
Cam in wi' Maggie Lauder."
And in a note, explanatoiy, adds— "Alluding to a scoffing ballad
which was made on the admission of the late reverend and worthy Mr
Lindsay to the Laigh Kirk." The foregoing verses constitute the
identical " scoffing ballad" referred to by the poet. We are indebted
for them to the kindness of William Tannock, Esq., whose father was
age.
almost the only person living who could repeat the whole of the ballad.
Mr Tannock, elder, was ten years of age when the induction of
Mr Lindsay took place in 1764; so that, in 1842, when his son noted
down the verses fi'om his recitation, he would be eighty-eight years of
The Earl of Glencaim, William, thu-teenth Earl, was patron of the
church, and it was generally believed that Mr Lindsay obtained the
presentation of Kihnamock through the influence of his wife Margaret
Lauder—^who had formerly been housekeeper in the family of
the Earl. Mr Lindsay was minister of the Cumbraes at the time.
His translation was opposed, and the presbytery of Irvine decided
against it. The case, however, came before the General Assembly,
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