Now this is a
business, which James Batter agrees with me in thinking is carried on,
furthered, and brought about, by every one furnishing his share of
experience to the general stock. Let-a-be this plain truth, another
point of argument for my bringing out my bit book at the present time is,
that I am here to the fore bodily, with the use of my seven senses, to
give day and date to all such as venture to put on the misbelieving front
of Sadducees, with regard to any of the accidents, mischances, marvellous
escapes, and extraordinary businesses therein related; and to show them,
as plain as the bool of a pint stoup, that each and everything set down
by me within its boards is just as true, as that a blind man needs not
spectacles, or that my name is Mansie Wauch.

Perhaps as a person willing and anxious to give every man his due, it is
necessary for me explicitly to mention, that, in the course of this book,
I am indebted to my friend James Batter, for his able help in assisting
me to spell the kittle words, and in rummaging out scraps of poem-books
for headpieces to my different chapters which appear in the table of
contents.

LIST OF CONTENTS

PRELIMINARIES

I. OUR OLD GRANDFATHER,

II. MY OWN FATHER,

The weaver he gied up the stair,
Dancing and singing;
A bunch o' bobbins at his back,
Rattling and ringing.

_Old Song_.

III. COMING INTO THE WORLD,

--At first the babe
Was sickly; and a smile was seen to pass
Across the midwife's cheek, when, holding up
The feeble wretch, she to the father said,
"A fine man-child!" What else could they expect?
The father being, as I said before,
A weaver.

HOGG'S _Poetic Mirror_.

IV. CALF-LOVE,

Bonny lassie, will ye go, will ye go, will ye go,
Bonny lassie, will ye go to the Birks of Aberfeldy?

BURNS.

For a tailor is a man, a man, a man,
And a tailor is a man.

_Popular Heroic Song_.

V. CURSECOWL,

From his red poll a redder cowl hung down;
His jacket, if through grease we guess, was brown;
A vigorous scamp, some forty summers old;
Rough Shetland stockings up his thighs were roll'd;
While at his side horn-handled steels