Wit & humour > Gentle shepherd

The GENTLE SHEPHERD. 4f
E L S P A.
Ye offer fair, kind Claud, but dinna fpeer
What may be is not fit ye yet fhould hear.
S y m o N.
Or this day eight days, likely ye fhall learn.
That our denial difna flight your bairn.
Claud.
Well, nae mair o’t, come gi’es the other bend,
We’ll drink their healths, whatever way it end.
(Their healths gae round.')
S y m o N.
But will ye tell me, Claud, by fbme it’s laid.
Your niece is but a fundling, that was laid
Down at your ballon fide, ae morn in May,
Right clean row’d up, and bedded on dry hay.
Claud.
That clatteran Madge, my Time, tells fic flaws,
Whene’re our Meg her cankar’d humour gaws.
Enter Jenny.
O! Father, there’s an auld man on the green.
The felleft fortune-teller e’er was feen;
He tents our loofs, and fyne whops out a book.
Turns owre the leaves, and gies our brows a look:
Syne tells the oddeft tales that e’er ye heard.
His head is gray, and lang and gray his beard.
^ S Y M O N.
Gae bring him in, we’ll hear what he can fay.
Mane fhall gang hungry by my hpufe to day.
{Exit Jenny.
But for his telling fortunes, troth I fear
He kens nae mair of that than my gray mare.
Claud.