a pair of kuttikins for old Mr
Mooleypouch the mealmonger, when the lassie came back, I had no mind of
asking a sight of the sheep's head, as I aye like the little blackfaced,
in preference to the white, fat, fozy Cheviot breed; but, most
providentially, I catched a gliskie of the wench passing the shop window,
on the road over to Jamie Coom the smith's, to get it singed, having been
dispatched there by her mistress. Running round the counter like
lightning, I opened the sneck, and halooed to her to wheel to the right
about, having, somehow or other, a superstitious longing to look at the
article. As I was saying, there was a Providence in this, which, at the
time, mortal man could never have thought of.

James Batter had popped in with a newspaper in his hand, to read me a
curious account of a mermaid, that was seen singing a Gaelic song, and
combing its hair with a tortoise-shell comb, someway terrible far north
about Shetland, by a respectable minister of the district, riding home in
the gloaming after a presbytery dinner. So, as he was just taking off
his spectacles cannily, and saying to me--"And was not that droll?"--the
lassie spread down her towel on the counter, when, lo and behold! such an
abominable spectacle! James Batter observing me run back, and turn
white, put on his glasses again, cannily taking them out of his well-worn
shagreen case, and, giving a stare down at the towel, almost touched the
beast's nose with his own.

"And what, in the name of goodness, is the matter?" quo' James Batter;
"ye seem in a wonderful quandary."

"The matter!" answered I, in astonishment; looking to see if the man had
lost his sight or his senses--"the matter! who ever saw a sheep's head
with straight horns, and a visnomy all colours of the rainbow--red, blue,
orange, green, yellow, white, and black?"

"'Deed it is," said James, after a nearer inspection; "it must be a lowsy-
naturay. I'm sure I have read most of Buffon's books, and I have never
heard tell of the like. It's gey an' queerish."

"'Od, James," answered I, "ye take every thing very canny; you're a
philosopher, to be sure; but, I daresay, if the moon was to fall from the
lift, and knock down the old kirk, ye would say no more than 'it's gey
an' queerish!'"

"Queerish, man! do ye not see that?" added I, shoving down his head
mostly on the top of it. "Do ye not see that? awful, most awful!
extonishing!! Do ye not see that long beard? Who, in the name