A bargain however is struck, and the Doctor says to Jack, start to your feet and stand!
Jack. Oh hon, my back, I’m sairly wounded.
Doctor. What ails your back?
Jack. There’s a hole in’t you may turn your tongue ten times round it!
Doctor. How did you get it?
Jack. Fighting for our land.
Doctor. How mony did you kill?
Jack. I killed a’ the loons save ane, but he ran, he wad na stand.
Here, most unfortunately, there is a “hole i’ the ballad,” a hiatus which irreparably closes the door upon our keenest prying. During the late war with France Jack was made to say he had been “fighting the French,” and that the loon who took leg bail was no less a personage than Nap. le grand! Whether we are to regard this as a dark prophetic anticipation of what did actually take place, seems really problematical. The strange eventful history however is wound up by the entrance of Judas with the bag. He says:
Here comes in Judas—Judas is my name,
If ye pit nought sillar i’ my bag, for gude-sake mind our wame!
When I gaed to the castle yett and tirl’t at the pin,
They keepit the keys o’ the castle wa’, and wad na let me in.
I’ve been i’ the east carse,
I’ve been i’ the west carse,
I’ve been i’ the carse o’ Gowrie,
Where the clouds rain a’ day wi’ peas and wi’ beans!
And the farmers theek houses wi’ needles and prins!
I’ve seen geese ga’in’ on pattens!
And swine fleeing i’ the air like peelings o’ onions!
Our hearts are made o’ steel, but our body’s sma’ as ware,
If you’ve onything to gi’ us, stap it in there!