id the bird, "are sair fallen off from the auld
stock. Now ye sit and spell in books, and talk about what ye little
understand, when your fathers were roaming the warld. But little cause
have I to speak, for I too am a downcome. My bill is two inches
shorter than my mother's, and my grandmother was taller on her feet.
The warld is getting weaklier things to dwell in it, even since I mind
mysel'."

"Ye have the gift o' speech; bird," said the man, "and I would hear
mair." You will perceive that he had no mind of the Sabbath day or the
fifteenth head of the forenoon's discourse.

"What things have I to tell ye when ye dinna ken the very horn-book o'
knowledge? Besides, I am no clatter-vengeance to tell stories in the
middle o' the muir, where there are ears open high and low. There's
others than me wi mair experience and a better skill at the telling.
Our clan was well acquaint wi' the reivers and lifters o' the muirs,
and could crack fine o' wars and the takin of cattle. But the blue
hawk that lives in the corrie o' the Dreichil can speak o' kelpies and
the dwarfs that bide in the hill. The heron, the lang solemn fellow,
kens o' the greenwood fairies and the wood elfins, and the wild geese
that squatter on the tap o' the Muneraw will croak to ye of the merry
maidens and the girls o' the pool. The wren--him that hops in the
grass below the birks--has the story of the Lost Ladies of the Land,
which is ower auld and sad for any but the wisest to hear; and there is
a wee bird bides in the heather-hill--lintie men call him--who sings
the Lay of the West Wind, and the Glee of the Rowan Berries. But what
am I talking of? What are these things to you, if ye have not first
heard True Thomas's Rime, which is the beginning and end o' all things?

"I have heard no rime" said the man, "save the sacred psalms o' God's
Kirk."

"Bonny rimes" said the bird. "Once I flew by the hinder end o' the
Kirk and I keekit in. A wheen auld wives wi' mutches and a wheen
solemn men wi' hoasts! Be sure the Rime is no like yon."

"Can ye sing it, bird?" said the man, "for I am keen to hear it."

"Me sing!" cried the bird, "me that has a voice like a craw! Na, na, I
canna sing it, but maybe I can tak ye where ye may hear it. When I was
young an auld bogblitter did the same to me, and sae began my
education. But are ye willing and brawly willing?--for if ye get but a
sough of it ye will never mair have an ear for other music."