The clachan yill had made me canty,
     I was na fou, but just had plenty;
     I stacher’d whiles, but yet too tent aye
     To free the ditches;
     An’ hillocks, stanes, an’ bushes, kenn’d eye
     Frae ghaists an’ witches.

     The rising moon began to glowre
     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,
     An’ todlin down on Willie’s mill,
     Setting my staff wi’ a’ my skill,
     To keep me sicker;
     Tho’ leeward whiles, against my will,
     I took a bicker.

     I there wi’ Something did forgather,
     That pat me in an eerie swither;
     An’ awfu’ scythe, out-owre ae shouther,
     Clear-dangling, hang;
     A three-tae’d 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!"^1
     I seem’d to make a kind o’ stan’
     But naething spak;
     At length, says I, “Friend! whare ye gaun? 
     Will ye go back?”

     It spak right howe,—­“My name is Death,
     But be na fley’d.”—­Quoth I, “Guid faith,
     Ye’re maybe come to stap my breath;
     But tent me, billie;
     I red ye weel, tak care o’ skaith
     See, there’s a gully!”

     “Gudeman,” quo’ he, “put up your whittle,
     I’m no designed to try its mettle;
     But if I did, I wad be kittle
     To be mislear’d;
     I wad na mind it, no that spittle
     Out-owre my beard.”

     “Weel, weel!” says I, “a bargain be’t;
     Come, gie’s your hand, an’ sae we’re gree’t;
     We’ll ease our shanks an tak a seat—­
     Come, gie’s your news;
     This while ye hae been mony a gate,
     At mony a house."^2

     [Footnote 1:  This recontre happened in seed-time, 1785.—­R.B.]

     [Footnote 2:  An epidemical fever was then raging in that
      country.—­R.B.]

     “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.

     “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^3 ta’en up the trade,
     And faith! he’ll waur me.

     “Ye ken Hornbook i’ the clachan,
     Deil mak his king’s-hood in spleuchan! 
     He’s grown sae weel acquaint wi’ Buchan^4
     And ither chaps,
     The weans haud out their fingers laughin,
     An’ pouk my hips.