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

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THE LAIRD O CHANGUE.
" I can read the corlDies's eerie wail
And the rin of the startit hare
And the magpie's clamorous counsel tell,
But ihir heuks I'll ne'er read mair."
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" Well even's ye like," says father Grub,
" But hearken to my decree :
A liunner merks ye down maun pay,
For the trouble you've gien to me,
Forbye threescore o' ewes and lambs
To our haly abbot send
To pay for the shrivin' o' your sin,
And a mass that ye may mend."
" Odsooks ! ye greedy monk," says Changue,
" I wonder'd you took sic pain ;
But it was nae that my puir saul was wrang.
But the greed o' your heart for gain.
" A hunner merks ye sail never get,
And the abbot for me ye'U tell
If a dinner of braxy please his pate.
He maun come for't himsell."
" Swyth out o' my sight," says father Grub,
" With the foul thief ye hae been ;
See, see he's whisperin' in your lug.
And glowrin' frae your e'en !
" You've been with that apostate Knox,
Wliile preachin' at the Bar ;*
been detected using the misnomer, a person was actually fared o'er the sea ; and
what was still more terrible to youthful imagination to contemplate, the vessel
in which he was conveyed was no other than an egg shell.
At the time and place I allude to, both old and young had as much faith in
the existence of fairies as they had in their own. No man, for instance, would
put clean straw in his shoes at night, because the fairies would then undoubtedly
come and dance in them the whole night ; nor would any sjjinster be so
hardy as to leave the band on her wheel, because the fairies would then most
assuredly come and spin till daybreak.
* The Bar Castle at Galston, Ayrshire, was one of Wishart's preaching stations
in the year 1545 and of Knox in 1562. In that year, the name of John Lock-
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