Page:Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry - 1887.djvu/144

140 illicit establishment. As I resumed my seat, Mungo Macubin seized my hand, and, nearly wringing it from my wrist, in joy exclaimed, 'By my faith, lad, ye are a rid-handed one, and well do ye deserve a share in the profits of our distillation. Who would have thought that a stolen sheepskin, or rather the skin of a stolen sheep, could have quenched such a furious flame? And now, let me tell you, John Mackleg, if you touch whisky or let whisky touch you, for these four-and-twenty hours, I will surely measure out your inheritance with that scoundrel carcass of yours.' And with a stamp of his foot, and a lour of his brow, he awed his companion into fear and submission.

"I could see that the chief conductor of this wild establishment no longer regarded me with distrust or suspicion. He seated himself between his fiercer comrade and me, as if he dreaded outrage; and, pulling a soiled book from his bosom, appeared to examine it with some attention. It was one of those political labours of the London press, where the author, addressing himself to the multitude, had called in the powerful aid of engraving to render the obscurity of language intelligible. Our southern peasantry, with that love of the simplicity of ancient days which regards instruction as a trick of state, and wishes to reduce the tyranny of learning to the primitive score and tally, have maintained their natural condition in such entire purity, that literature in addressing them is fain to make use of sensible signs and tokens. Of these this book was full; but its owner turned over the leaves with a dissatisfied and disdainful eye, and at last threw it in contempt into the caldron fire. He took up his fiddle again, and, after playing snatches of several serious airs, sang some verses with a tone of bitter sorrow which showed little sympathy with the poetry. I remember several stanzas.

Full thirty winter snows, last yule,

Have fallen on me mid pine and dool;

My clothing scant, my living spare,

I've reckoned kin with woe and care;

I count my days and mete my grave;

While Fortune to some brainless knave

Holds up her strumpet cheek to kiss:

My mind to me my kingdom is.