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DEATH

AND

DOCTOR HORNBOOK:

A TRUE STORY.

SOME books are lies frae end to end,
And some great lies were never penn'd
Ev'n Ministers, they hae been kenn'd,
In holy rapture,

A rousing whid, at times, to vend,

And nail't wi' Scripture.

But this that I am gaun to tell,
Which lately on a night befel,
Is just as true's the Deil's in h-ll,

Or Dublin city:

That e'er he nearer comes oursel

'S a muckle pity.

The Clachan yill had made me canty,
I was na fou, but just had plenty;
I stacher'd whyles, but yet took tent ay
To free the ditches:"

An' hillocks, stanes, and bushes, kenn'd ay

Frae ghaists an' witches.

The rising moon began to glow'r
The distant Cumnock hills out-owre

To count her horns, wi' a' my pow'r,
I set mysel;

But whether she had three or four,
I cou'd na tell.

I was come round about the hill,
And todlin down on Willie's mill,
Setting my staff wi' a' my skill,

;

To keep me sicker Tho' leeward whyles, against my will, I took a bicker.

I there wi' Something did forgather,
That put me in an eerie swither;

An awfu' scythe, out-owre ae shouther,

Clear-dangling, hang;

A three-taed leister on the ither

Lay, large an' lang.

Its stature seem'd lang Scotch ells twa,
The queerest shape that e'er I saw,

For fient a wame it had ava;

And then, its shanks,

They were as thin, as sharp an' sma'

As cheeks o' branks:

'Guid-een,' quo' I; 'Friend! hae ye been mawin, When ither folk are busy sawin ?* It seem'd to mak a kind o' stan',

But naething spak;

This rencounter happened in sced-time, 1786,

At length, says I, Friend, whare ye gaun, o 'Will ye go back?'

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It spak right howe, My name is Death, 'But be na' fley'd'—Quoth I, 'Guid faith, 'Ye're may be come to stap my breath; 】 "But tent me billie;

I red ye weel, tak care o' skaith,

See, there's a gully!

'Guidman,' quo' he, put up your whittle, 'I'm no design'd to try its mettle;

'But if I did, I wad be kittle

To be misleard, bor

"I wad na mind it, no, that spittle

• Out-owre my beard.'

'Weel, weel!' says I, a bargain be't;

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'Come, gies your hand, an' sae we're gree't; 'We'll ease our shanks an' tak a seat,

Come, gies your news;

This while ye hae been mony a gate 'At mony a house.'

Ay, ay!' quo' he, an' shook his head, "It's e'en a lang, lang time indeed Sin' I began to nick the thread,

'An' choke the breath:

'Folk maun do something for their bread,

An' sae maun Death.

* An epidemical fever was then raging in that country.

Sax thousand years are near hand fled
Sin' I was to the butching bred,

'An' mony a scheme in vain's been laid,

To stap or scar me;

'Till ane Hornbook's* ta'en up the trade, An' faith, he'll waur me.

"Ye ken Jock Hornbook i' the Clachan,
Deil mak his king's-hood in a spleuchan!
'He's grown sae well acquaint wi' Buchant
An' ither chaps,

6

The weans haud out their fingers laughin
And pouk my hips.

See, here's a scythe, and there's a dart,
They hae pierc'd mony a gallant heart;

But Doctor Hornbook, wi' his art

And cursed skill,

Has made them baith no worth a f―t,
'Damn'd haet they'll kill.

'Twas but yestreen, nae farther gaen, "I threw a noble throw at ane;

'Wi' less, I'm sure, I've hundred's slain; But deil-ma-care,

"It just play'd dirl on the bane,

'But did nae mair.

* This gentleman, Dr Hornbook, is professionally, a brother of the Sovereign Order of the Ferula, but, by intuition and inspiration, is at once an Apothecary, Surgeon, and Physician, + Buchan's Domestic Medicine,

* Hornbook was by, wi' ready art, And had sae fortify'd the párt, That when I looked to my dart,

It was sae blunt,

• Fient haet o't wad hae pierc'd the heart T "Of a kail-runt.

I drew my scythe in sic a fury,
I nearhand cowpit wi' my hurry,
But yet the bauld Apothecary

• Withstood the shock

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I might as weel hae try'd a quarry
O' hard whin rock.

Ev'n them he canna get attended,
Altho' their face he ne'er had kend it,

• Just

in a kail-blade, and send it,

'As soon he smells't,

Baith their disease, and what will mend it,
At once he tells't.

And then a' doctor's saws and whittles,
Of a' dimensions, shapes, an' mettles,
A' kinds o' boxes, mugs, an' bottles,
He's sure to hae;

Their Latin names as fast he rattles
As A B C.

Calces o' fossils, earth, and trees;
True Sal-marinum, o' the seas;
The Farina of beans and pease,

• He has❜t in plenty

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