Chapter I

A _sans culotte_ from Caledonia’s wilds,
Rasp’d into form by Nature’s roughest files,
Hearing of savoury meats—of monies made—
Of unsmoked women—and of dexterous trade;—
Resolved, from sooty cot, to seek a town,
And to the low-lands boldly stump it down.
But then, alas! his garb would never do—
The greasy kilt, bare loins, and tatter’d shoe:
Yet urged to better food and better fame,
He borrow’d breeches and assumed a name;
Then truck’d his kilt, barter’d his motley hose,
New nail’d his heels, and capp’d the peeping toes.
His freckled fist a swineherd’s bludgeon wields,—
His tried companion through the sties and fields,
(Full many a grunting brawn had felt its sway)
Now to a _cane_ promoted, helps its master’s way.
Full fifty bawbees Sandy had in store,
And piteous tales had raised him fifty more:
His knife, his pipe, and eke his bawbee bank,
In Basil pouch hung dangling from his flank:
No empty wallet on his shoulder floats:
Hard eggs, soft cheese, tobacco, salt, and oats,
Cramm’d in one end, wagg’d o’er his brawny chest,
And what was once a blanket poised the rest:
Thus wealthy, victuall’d, proud, content, and gay,
Down Grampian’s sterile steeps young Sandy wound his way.
Hail food! hail raiment! hail that happy lot
Which lured such genius from the smoky cot,
To mingle in the ranks of breeches’d men,
And coin a name and family again!