The tither was a ploughman's collie, [other] A rhyming, ranting, raving billie; [fellow] Wha for his friend and comrade had him, And in his freaks had Luath ca'd him, After some dog in Highland sang, Was made lang syne--Lord knows how lang.
He was a gash an' faithfu' tyke, [wise, dog] As ever lap a sheugh or dyke; [leapt, ditch, wall] His honest sonsie, bawsent face [pleasant, white-marked] Aye gat him friends in ilka place, [every] His breast was white, his tousie back [shaggy] Weel clad wi' coat o' glossy black: His gawsie tail, wi' upward curl, [joyous] Hung o'er his hurdles wi' a swirl. [buttocks]
Nae doubt but they were fain o' ither, [glad] And unco pack and thick thegither; [intimate] Wi' social nose whyles snuff'd and snowkit; Whyles mice and moudieworts they howkit; [moles, dug] Whyles scour'd awa in lang excursion, And worried ither in diversion; Until wi' daffin' weary grown, [merriment] Upon a knowe they sat them down, [knoll] And there began a lang digression About the lords of the creation.
I've aften wonder'd, honest Luath, What sort o' life poor dogs like you have; An' when the gentry's life I saw, What way poor bodies liv'd ava. [at all] Our Laird gets in his racked rents, His coals, his kain, and a' his stents; [rent in kind, dues] He rises when he likes himsel'; His flunkies answer at the bell: He ca's his coach; he ca's his horse; [calls] He draws a bonny silken purse As lang's my tail, where, through the steeks, [stitches] The yellow-letter'd Geordie keeks. [guinea peeps] Frae morn to e'en it's nought but toiling At baking, roasting, frying, boiling; And though the gentry first are stechin', [cramming] Yet e'en the ha' folk fill their pechan [servants, belly] Wi' sauce, ragouts, and sic like trashtrie, [rubbish] That's little short o' downright wastrie. [waste] Our whipper-in, wee blastit wonner! [wonder] Poor worthless elf! it eats a dinner Better than ony tenant man His Honour has in a' the lan'; An' what poor cot-folk pit their painch in, [put, paunch] I own it's past my comprehension.
Trowth, Caesar, whyles they're fash'd eneugh; [troubled] A cottar howkin' in a sheugh, [digging, ditch] Wi' dirty stanes biggin' a dyke, [building, wall] Baring a quarry, and sic like; [clearing] Himsel', a wife, he thus sustains, A smytrie o' wee duddy weans, [brood, ragged children] And nought but his han'-darg to keep [hand-labor] Them right and tight in thack and rape. [thatch, rope] And when they meet wi' sair disasters, [sore] Like loss o' health, or want o' masters, Ye maist wad think, a wee touch langer [almost] And they maun starve o' cauld and hunger; [must] But how it comes I never kent yet. [knew] They're maistly wonderfu' contented; An' buirdly chiels and clever hizzies [stout lads, girls] Are bred in sic a way as this is.