University of Virginia Library

MERRY TALES For the lang Nights of Winter.

In Dialogues betwixt the Tinklarian Doctor and his Grandam, &c.

TINKLARIAN DOCTOR.
On a winter's night, my gran'am spinning,
To make a web of good Scots linen;
Her stool being plac'd next to the chimley;
For she was auld, and saw right dimly:
My lucky-dad, an honest Whig,
Was telling tales of Bothwel-brig;
He could not miss to mind th'attempt,
For he was sitting peeling hemp.
My aunt, whom nane dare say has no grace,
Was reading on the Pilgrim's Progress;
The meikle tasker, Davie Dallas,
Was telling blads of William Wallace:
My mither bade her second son say,
What he'ad by heart of Davie Lindsay.
Our herd, whom all folks hate that know him,
Was busy hunting in his bosom,
'Till, being tir'd with twa hours scratching,
He fell at length to quick dispatching;
Ne'er Roman slew so many Grecians,
As he did of his blood relations;
Nor did he think it was a sin,
To be the dead of all his kin.
The bairns and oes were all within doors,
The youngest of us chewing cynders,
And all the auld anes telling wonders.
I'll tell you mine, you ne'er heard droller,
'Tis meikle worth to be a scholar.
I've seen you where you never was,
And where you ne'er will be;
But yet within that very place,
You shall be seen by me

GRANDAM.
Na, that dings all; but 'tis a fiction,
A plain and perfect contradiction;
You'll see me where I ne'er will be,
I never heard a greater lie.

TINK. DOCTOR.
Gran'am, look up unto the glass,
And there you'll see your wrinkled face.

GRANDAM.
I vow, I'd rather giv'n ten dollars,
Before I had not bred you scholars.
I love to hear your sweet debating,
With ane word Scots, the other Latin;
There's nane of all the bairn-time stupid,
Their beards may all wag in the pulpit:
E'en Sandy, if to next year spar'd,
May be a chaplain to a laird.
But, hear me Willie; ye're the eldest,
I ken you can a story tell best;
With all your clergy tell the wonder,
I cannot, tho' I'm near an hunder,
Why my teeth, younger than my tongue,
Hard as a stane or well dry'd rung,
Should moulder like a rotten liver,
Yet my soft tongue continue clever?
Or why shoe-soles so soon decay,
In less than six months quite away,
Yet my thin hide should never wear,
Tho' daily worn this ninety year?
Or, tell me, if you ken the matter,
Why ale, being thicker far than water,
Should in my throat get easy downfal,
But water choaks me; were't a spoonful?

TINK. DOCTOR.
Grandam, I'll answer all your wonders,
Beginning at the first, your grinders;
Must not that wear which ne'er lies still,
Ay grinding like the Canno-mill;
You're just a mill, your mouth's the happer,
Your teeth the mill-stanes, tongue the clapper;
Ye ken the clapper is but thin,
And, like your tongue, ay making din;
Yet it will wear out twenty mill-stanes,
Tho' they are kent not to be ill stanes,
As to the second, you'd consider,
That beasts have different kinds of leather;
Shoe-soles from dead-beasts they do flae,
But ye are living, lang be't sae.
As to the last, 'bout ale and water,
Ale gangs down, 'cause you like it better.

GRANDAM.
The last's the truest of the three,
The shame a word of that's a lie.

TINK. DOCTOR.
Gran'am, I've answer'd all your questions,
Give's a tale, ane of your best anes.

GRANDAM.
I'll tell you a tale,—In the days of Cromwell,
When Charles the first from the throne did tumble;
I was about fourteen years and an half old,
When the rogues took his head aff on a scaffold:
We were very ill-fash'd with the English land-loupers,
And the hail country was o'er-run with moss troopers;
I went out upon a night with my sister Jean,
I mind very well 'twas on Valentine's-e'en;
We'd been drawing our valentines, I drew John Strang,
He had a base property, 'twas scyre wrang;
Red hair'd, dish brow'd,
Bladder lipped, meikle mow'd,
We met with my auld jo Geordie Brown,
He liv'd, when he was living, in th'Overtown,
His face was big and fair like a fu' moon;
He had on a suit with prince's metal button,
His twa hands were like twa hind legs of mutton;
I'm sure it was not with eating, he was nae glutton.
His legs mens'd all the parish at kirk and market,
He said to me, 'tis bawdy, I had best hark it;
Lend me your lug, Giles, and I'll round it in,
Now for your life, limmer, offer to tell't again:
But we were cry'd back on, by my sister Mary,
So Geordie and we fell to play at blind Hary.
Geordie gigled and leugh ay, when I was ta'en,
And the place he gript me by, was the wame;
But the farmers coming in to bir{n} their placks,
We left the drunken carles to their own cracks,
We went to the barnyard and play'd bogle about the stacks.
When I was wearied with hiding, and he with pursuing,
We sat down at a haystack, and fell close to the wooing;
He slaver'd all my lips, and turn'd very uncivil,
He thrust up his hand the length of my navel;
I gar'd all the folk hear me, and cry'd out like a devil.
The de'il take me, quoth I, blessing myself, if I be your lown,
Sae tell me, are you in mows or earnest, Geordie Brown?
I'm in earnest, quo' Geordie, 'tis better nor cracking,
Make nae noise, Bessie, 'tis ay good to be taking;
But out came my mither with a rock in her bosom,
She gave him his paiks, and soundly did toss him.
He took to his heels and scour'd thro' the green,
So I'll never forget that Valentine's e'en.

TINK. DOCTOR.
Gran'am, I'm ay fear'd you've been an auld sinner,
You love a bawdy tale, as I do my dinner.
I'll tell you a tale should not be forgotten,
The wife I'm speaking of is both dead and rotten:
An honest Cameronian near the Bow-head,
She was sae very afflicted when her husband was dead,
Ev'ning and morning she went to the Gray-friars;
(If this be not true, many ane's liars).
It happen'd anes as she went there to mourn,
But first she behoved to make her burn;
And hunk'ring down upon the cauld grass,
A thistle on the grave jagged her arse,
She thought her buttocks were touch'd by old cuff,
Thrusting his hand up thro' the turf;
She ran away crying, five times or six,
Dead or alive you mind your auld tricks.

MAUSE.

Little JAMIE.
Gran'am, give me a pair of new breiks,
And I'll tell you some things will gar you rive your cheeks.

GRANDAM.
Blessings upon the wean, hear how he speaks,
My dear, ye'll not want it, if I should buy them with straiks.

Little JAMIE.
'Twas auld lang syne, in an hamely converse,
A Scotsman bade the king and court his a---se.

GRANDAM.
Mislear'd fallow, the meikle devil speed him,
I'm sure the king wad gar hang him; or head him.

Little JAMIE.
Indeed he did neither, but thought him a fit tool,
To be carry'd to court, and made the king's fool.

GRANDAM.
They turn all fools goes there, Jamie, that's nae lie,
Our laird spends his siller there ilka bawbie;
He had anes a bra' fortune, its a' gaue to wrack;
For London's a place that herries the pack;
I believe, this day he's not worth five and a plack.
The lords and lairds that gae up fae fast thither,
Are just like the bairns that forget their auld mither;
And like the northland folk, that come from beyond Tay,
To return back again they seldom find the way:
They say our laird's ta'en up about state affairs,
Shame fa' that wark, makes many poor heirs.

Little JAMIE.
Let us who stay at hame, study to be thrivers,
And we'll turn lairds, when the lairds turn dyvers:
But Gran'am, let me tell out my bra' sport,
How the man spake to the king and his court;
'Twas king James the sixth, when he rang twenty years
King of England, and then came down with his peers,
To visit Scotland, where he got his being,
The kings sinsyne think we're not worth their seeing,
King George wadna come if it wad save us frae dying;
For these English cuckolds, who would cut our throats,
Gar the honest man turn his back on the Scots:
I love ay that minister, he was an honest gentleman,
Who said ance in a preaching, the devil was an Englishman;
And by the reason he gave, it's very true indeed,
When scholars raise the devil, he has horns on his head.
But to return to my tale, the king and his dunnawassels,
Came to so see the Scots gentry and all his vassals;
As he lodg'd on the road, where they sauld brandy and ale,
And the king was turn'd canty with the other gill;
He asked the landlord, how long he'd liv'd there:
The man answered, five hundred years and mair,
I and my predecessors, tho' you may think it a base lie,
'Tis as true as ony thing in the black book of Paisley.
Do you ken, said the king, wha was your chief,
He was hang'd, quo' the man, on the gallows of Crieff,
Waes me, quo' the king, it seems he's been a thief.
Indeed I'm sure he was nae that, quo' the other,
But king David gart hang baith him and his brother.
What was the crimes they dy'd for, said king James,
May be they were rebels, what was their names?
Indeed, answer'd the man, they were not baptiz'd,
But just took to themselves what names they pleas'd;
For the sign of the cross, us'd then by popish fallows,
Look'd as if the bairns were to die on the gallows:
But for the good of Scotland, they gat aft sair banes;
The name of the eldest was, Praise-god Bair-banes:
The second brother's name, who was a laird in the Merse,
Was, an't please your majesty, Kiss-my-a---se:
Bare-banes came to be treasurer, by which he wan siller,
And for two years together, Kiss-my-a---se chancellor;
But thereafter Bare-banes was chancellor, for he was a cunning spark,
And Kiss-my-a---se was twice justice clerk:
Yet falling some way thereafter under the king's anger,
They kend they wad be hang'd, if they stay'd ony langer;
Sae they travell'd in disguise, that they might not be kend,
And turn'd baith of them trencher-makers to their life's end:
They travell'd with tinkers and gypsies, thro' mony man's ground:
Bare banes made his four nooked, Kiss-my-a---se's were all round.

GRANDAM.
Sirs, heard you e'er a bairn speak sae in his age,
He'll be the tinklarian all o'er, I see by his visage,
Who is well kend to be the prettiest man in this age.