Wha won the fecht, or whilk ane lost,
Was hid frae mortal e’e, sirs,
Nane saw the fearsome end o’ baith
Macfadden an’ Macfee, sirs.

But still they say, at break o’ day,
Upon the braes o’ Lorne,
Ye’ll hear the ghaistly rustlin’ o’
Macfadden’s Sabbath sporran.

TAM AND THE LEECHES.

I.
Faith, there’s a hantle queer complaints
To cheenge puir sinners into saints,
An’ mony divers ways o’ deein’
That doctors hae a chance o’ seein’. 
The Babylonian scartit bricks
To tell his doots o’ Death’s dark tricks,
The Roman kentna hoo ‘twas farin’
Across the ferry rowed by Charon,
An’ readin’ doonwards through the ages
The tale’s the same in a’ their pages,
Eternal grum’lin’ at the load
We hae to bear alang Life’s road,
Yet, when we’re fairly at the bit,
Awfu’, maist awfu sweer to flit,
Praisin’ the name o’ ony drug
The doctor whispers in oor lug
As guaranteed to cure the evil,
To haud us here an’ cheat the Deevil. 
For gangrels, croochin’ in the strae,
To leave this warld are oft as wae
As the prood laird o’ mony an acre,
O’ temporal things a keen partaker.

II. 
Noo a’ this leads up to my tale
O’ what befell puir Tam MacPhail,
A dacent miner chiel in Fife
Wha led a maist exemplar’ life,
An’ ne’er abused himsel’ wi’ liquor,
But took it canny-like an’ siccar. 
Aye when he cast his wet pit-breeks,
Tam had a gless that warm’d his cheeks;
For as it trickled owre his craigie,
He held it wardit aff lumbaigy. 
It wasna that he liked the dram,
‘Twas pure needcessity wi’ Tam! 
But twa years syne-or was it three?-
Tam thocht that he was gaun to dee,
An’ Faith! they’ve often gar’d me grew
By tellin’ what I’ll tell to you.

III. 
The early tatties had come in
When Tammas’s besettin’ sin,
A love o’ a’ this warld’s gude things
An’ a’ the pleesures eatin’ brings,
Gar’d him hae sic a bad mischeef
It fleggit him ayont belief! 
Pay-Saturday it was, I mind,
An’ Jean, intendin’ to be kind,
Had biled the firstlins o’ her yaird
(For naethin’ else Tam wud hae sair’d),
Sae when they cam’ frae Jean’s clean pat,
Altho’ they seemed a trifle wat,
Tam in his hunger ate a meal
That wud hae staw’d the big black Deil,
Syne at his cutty had a draw,
Syne gantit wi’ wide-open jaw,
An’ aince his heid was on the cod,
He sune was in the land o’ Nod.

IV. 
But when the knock had chappit four
Tam had to rise an’ get attour,
For in his bed he couldna’ bide
He’d sic a steer in his inside! 
The granes o’m waukent faithfu’ Jean. 
An’ then began a bonny scene! 
A parritch poultice first she tries,
Het plates on plates she multiplies,
But ilka time his puddens rum’les
A’ owre the place Tam rows an’ tum’les,