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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
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