And, faith, he'll prent it.

By some auld, houlet-haunted biggin,
Or kirk deserted by its riggin,
It's ten to ane ye'll find him snug in
Some eldritch part,
Wi' deils, they say, Lord save's! colleaguin'
At some black art.

It's tauld he was a sodger bred, (p. 109)
And ane wad rather fa'n than fled;
But now he's quat the spurtle-blade,
And dog-skin wallet,
And taen the--Antiquarian trade,
I think they call it.

He has a fouth o' auld nick-nackets;
Rusty airn caps, and jinglin' jackets,
Wad haud the Lothians three in tackets,
A towmont gude
And parritch-pats and auld saut-backets,
Before the Flood.

* * * * *

Forbye, he'll shape you aff fu' gleg
The cut of Adam's philibeg;
The knife that nicket Abel's craig
He'll prove you fully,
It was a faulding jocteleg
Or lang-kail gullie.

The meeting with Captain Grose took place in the summer of 1789, and
the stanzas just given were written probably about the same time. To
the same date belongs his ballad called _The Kirk's Alarm_, in which
he once more reverts to the defence of one of his old friends of the
New Light school, who had got into the Church Courts, and was in
jeopardy from the attacks of his more orthodox brethren. The ballad in
itself has little merit, except as showing that Burns still clung to
the same school of divines to which he had early attached himself. In
September we find him writing in a more serious strain to Mrs. Dunlop,
and suggesting thoughts which might console her in some affliction
under which she was suffering. "... In vain would we reason and
pretend to doubt. I have myself done so to a very daring pitch; but
when I reflected that I was opposing the most ardent wishes, and (p. 110)
the most darling hopes of good men, and flying in the face of all
human belief, in all ages, I was shocked at my own conduct."

That same September Burns, with his friend Allan Masterton, crossed
from Nithsdale to Annandale to vis