Page:Budget of wit and drollery.pdf/15

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thus:—My beloved, you are all here to-day, but wot ye who is among ye; even the meikle horned devil. You cannot see him, but by the eye of faith I see him. But some of you say, what will we do with him, now we have him here? How shall we, destroy him? We will hang him. Alas, my beloved, there are not so many tows in the parish as will hang him, he is as light as a feather. Then some of you will say we will drown him; Humph, my beloved there is owre muckle cork in his a—, he's as souple as an eel, he will not sink. Others of you will say, we will burn him, Na, na, Sirs, you may scald yourselves, but you canna burn him, for a' the fire in h— could never yet sing a hair o' his tail. Now, Sirs, ye canna find a way among you all to kill him, but I will find it. What way will this be, Sirs? We will even shoot him. Wherewith shall we shoot hlm? We shall shoot him with the Bible. Now Sirs, I shall shoot him presently. So, presenting the Bible, as soldiers do their muskets, he cries out, Toot! toot! toot! Now he is shot: there lies the foul thief as dead as a herring.

Long Credit.

Soon after the battle of Preston, two Highlanders, in roaming through the South of Mid-Lothian, entered the farm house of Swanston, near the Pentland Hills, where they found no one at home but an old woman. They immediately proceeded to search the house, and soon finding a web of coarse home-spun cloth, made no scruple to unroll and cut off as much as they thought would make a coat to each. The woman was exceedingly incenced at their rapacity, roared, and cried, and even had the hardihood to invoke divine vengeance