professors on his braid
shoulders. Ha, ha, ha! I think I see how the auld thief wad be gaun
through his gizened dominions, crying his wares, in derision, "Wha will
buy a fresh, cauler divine, a bouzy bishop, a fasting zealot, or a
piping priest?" For a' their prayers an' their praises, their aumuses,
an' their penances, their whinings, their howlings, their rantings, an'
their ravings, here they come at last! Behold the end! Here go the
rare and precious wares! A fat professor for a bodle, an' a lean ane
for half a merk!' I declare I trembled at the auld hag's ravings, but
the lave o' the kimmers applauded the sayings as sacred truths. An'
then Lucky went on: 'There are many wolves in sheep's claithing, among
us, my man; mony deils aneath the masks o' zealous professors, roaming
about in kirks and meetinghouses o' the land. It was but the year afore
the last that the people o' the town o' Auchtermuchty grew so rigidly
righteous that the meanest hind among them became a shining light in
ither towns an' parishes. There was naught to be heard, neither night
nor day, but preaching, praying, argumentation, an' catechising in a'
the famous town o' Auchtermuchty. The young men wooed their sweethearts
out o' the Song o' Solomon, an' the girls returned answers in strings
o' verses out o' the Psalms. At the lint-swinglings, they said
questions round; and read chapters, and sang hymns at bridals; auld and
young prayed in their dreams, an' prophesied in their sleep, till the
deils in the farrest nooks o' Hell were alarmed, and moved to
commotion. Gin it hadna been an auld carl, Robin Ruthven, Auchtermuchty
wad at that time hae been ruined and lost for ever. But Robin was a
cunning man, an' had rather mae wits than his ain, for he had been in
the hands o' the fairies when he was young, an' a' kinds o' spirits
were visible to his een, an' their language as familiar to him as his
ain mother tongue. Robin was sitting on the side o' the West Lowmond,
ae still gloomy night in September, when he saw a bridal o' corbie
craws coming east the lift, just on the edge o' the gloaming. The
moment that Robin saw them, he kenned, by their movements, that they
were craws o' some ither warld than this; so he signed himself, and
crap into the middle o' his bourock. The corbie craws came a' an' sat
down round about him, an' they poukit their black sooty wings, an'
spread them out to the breeze to cool; and Robin heard ae corbie
speaking, an' another a