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

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THE LAIRD O CHANGUE.
Changue sought liis hame, and lang ere noon
He stood at the abbot's door
And fifty merks he had to tell
For the evangels four.
Then hame he came to father Grub,
And a weary man was he
As roun' the Alti-kirk he crap,
Fu' low on his bended knee.
And ilka night, at the twilight hour,
He thither did repair.
To con his lesson to father Grub,
Wha nightly met him there.
But never a word, or letter, e'er
Could Changue or learn or spell
For the beuks were written in French right fair,
By the friar o' Machry-Kill.*
But the monk aye read, and better than read,
An' storm'd and read again ;
That Changue might learn his wrath to dread,
He grudg'd nor toil nor pain.
" Oh ! wae be on your beuks o' lair',"
At length says weary Changue,
" For I'll be dead, e'er I see the end.
Of thir wearyfu' beuks and lang.
" I learn't to read, when I was young,
Of nature's sacred lore
But of flyting beuks, in a foreign tongue,
I never hae heard before !
* " At Machray-Kill, in the parish of Dailly, there was once a small church
or chapel, probably dedicated to Saint Macarius," from whom the place derived
its present name.
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