We then went to see the old Bridge of Ayr, whose single arch connects each green shore. It wuz over this bridge that Tam o’ Shanter rode on the old mair Maggie, pursued by witches, “Wi’ mony an eldritch screech and hollow.”
And I eppisoded some. I have to in the strangest places. I methought that the same furies that pursued the drunken Tam is still sold in the same old inn, and even in the very birthplace of the poet.
The same furies that pursued the drunken Tam.
The same sperits of delerious fear, and senseless terror, are bought and sold at so much a glass. Poets live and poets die—empires rise and empires fall, but whiskey has to be sold jest the same. Drunkards race through their sottish lives, hag rid by the furies of drink and debauch. And mairs have to be rid to death, and have their tails cut off.
Sez Josiah, “It wuz probble a witch that cut off the mair’s tail.”
Till he answered me, I hadn’t mistrusted that I wuz a-eppisodin’ out loud.
Sez I, “That is to tippify how drunkards abuse their animals, most likely,” sez I, “and to show that these foul sperits don’t have no power where pure water is in full sway.
“The drink demon hates water,” sez I.
But Josiah sez—“Wall, wall! I didn’t walk out here to hold a Temperance Meetin’!” Sez he sarcastickally, “This hain’t a Total Abstinence Society!”