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I distaff.

2 wept.

3 scolded.

THE ROCK AND THE WEE
PICKLE TOW.*

THERE was an auld wife and a wee pickle tow,
And she wad gae try the spinning o't;

She louted her down, and her rock' took a low,
And that was a bad beginning o't.

She sat and she grat2, and she flet3 and she flang,
And she flew and she blew, and she wriggled and

wrang,

4 become frantic. And she choked and boaked, and cried like to mang4, "Alas for the dreary spinning o't!

5 disaster.

"I've wanted a sark for these eight years and ten,

And this was to be the beginning o't;

But I vow I shall want it for as lang again,

Or ever I try the spinning o't.

For never since ever they ca'd me as they ca' me,
Did sic a mishap or mishanter5 befa' me;

But

ye shall ha'e leave baith to hang me and draw me The neist time I try the spinning o't.

*An abridgement of this piece for singing purposes, made probably by Ross himself, was printed in Herd's collection, and is the version usually given in the song books.

"I ha'e keepit my house for these threescore o' years,
And aye I kept free o' the spinning o't;
But how I was sarked, foul fa' them that speers!
For it minds me upo' the beginning o't.

But our women are nowadays grown a' sae braw
That ilk ane maun ha'e her sark, and some maun

ha'e twa;

The warld was better when ne'er ane ava'
Had a rag but ane at the beginning o't.

"Foul fa' her that ever advised me to spin,
That had been sae lang a-beginning o't!
I might well have ended as I did begin,

Nor have got sic a scare wi' the spinning o't.
But they'll say 'She's a wise wife that kens her ain

weird";

I thought on a day it should never be speer'd,
'How loot ye the low tak' your rock by the beard
When ye gaed to try the spinning o't?'

I fate.

"The spinning, the spinning, it gars my heart sob
When I think upon the beginning o't;

I thought ere I died to have ance made a wob2,
But still I had wears3 of the spinning o't.
But had I nine dochters, as I ha'e but three,
The safest and soundest advice I could gi'e,

Is that they frae spinning wad keep their hands free,
For fear of a bad beginning o't.

2 web.

3 restraints, apprehensions.

"Yet, in spite of my counsel, if they will needs run.

The drearysome risk of the spinning o't,

1 sheltered place. Let them seek out a lyth' in the heat of the sun, And there venture on the beginning o't.

But to do as I did, alas I avow!

To busk up a rock at the cheek o' the low,
Says that I had but little wit in my pow,
And as little ado wi' the spinning o't.

2 arms.

3 stockingette sleeves.

"But yet, after a', there is ae thing that grieves
My heart to think o' the beginning o't;
Had I won the length but of ae pair o' sleeves

Then there had been word o' the spinning o't.
This I wad ha'e washen and bleached like the

snaw,

And on my twa gardies like moggans3 wad draw,
And then folk wad say that auld Girzy was braw,
And a' was upon her ain spinning o't.

4 jog.

5 earth.

6 unlucky.

7 hollow.

8 left way growing.

9 rowan-tree.

"But gin I could shog4 about till a new spring,
I should yet ha'e a bout o' the spinning o't;
A mutchkin o' lintseed I'd in the yerd5 fling,
For a' the wanchancy beginning o't.
I'll gar my ain Tammy gae down to the howe7
And cut me a rock o' a widdershins grow3
Of good rantry-tree9 for to carry my tow,

8

And a spindle o' same for the twining o't.

"For now, when I mind me, I met Maggie Grim
That morning, just at the beginning o't;
She was never ca'd chancy, but canny and slim,
And sae it has fared wi' my spinning o't.
But gin my new rock were ance cutted and dry,
I'll a' Maggie's cann and her cantrips1 defy,
And, but ony sussie2, the spinning I'll try,
And ye shall a' hear o' the beginning o't."

I cunning and spells.

2 without any anxiety.

JAMES THOMSON.

1700-1748.

If not singly the greatest, certainly not second to the greatest of the Scottish poets of the early part of the eighteenth century was James Thomson. Standing side by side with "The Gentle Shepherd" for freshness and charm, "The Seasons," equally with Ramsay's pastoral, sounded the note of revolt against the conventional school of Pope, and led the poetry of the country back to natural and unaffected themes.

The poet was born at Ednam in Roxburghshire, of which his father was minister, on September 11, 1700. Shortly afterwards the family removed to Southdean, and from the manse there every day during his boyhood Thomson trudged six miles down the Jed valley to school in the little country town. It was the scenery of that valley which he afterwards described in his poem of "Autumn." Close by Jedburgh an Edinburgh graduate named Riccarton had settled as a farmer. This enthusiast, who appears to have been a man of refinement and a poet, taught the boys Latin in an aisle of the parish church, and a poem of his, "A Winter's Day," is said to have sown the seed in his pupil's mind which years afterwards germinated into "The Seasons." From Jedburgh school Thomson passed to Edinburgh University, where he studied for five years with a view to entering the church. But a reproof which he received for the poetic and sensuous diction of his trial discourse turned his thoughts from that career, and, his father meantime having died,* he presently made his way to London to seek his fortune. His friend David Mallet was at that time tutor to the sons of the Duke of Montrose, and at the instance of Lady Grizel Baillie, Thomson obtained a similar engagement in the family of Lord Binning. He soon, however, tired of the monotony of his employment, and gave it up. He was lingering in this condition, about Barnet, friendless, poor, and despondent, and grieving over the death of his mother, of which news had just reached him, when the idea of his poem of "Winter" occurred to him. At school and at college he had written verses, and some

* The immediate cause of the death of the poet's father was a cold caught in the process of exorcising a local ghost.

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