and leave the third empty: blindfold a person, and lead him to the
hearth where the dishes are ranged; he (or she) dips the left hand: if
by chance in the clean water, the future husband or wife will come to
the bar of matrimony, a maid: if in the foul, a widow; if in the empty
dish, it foretells, with equal certainty, no marriage at all. It is
repeated three times; and every time the arrangement of the dishes is
altered.

[19] Sowens, with butter instead of milk to them, is always the
Halloween supper.

In _The Twa Dogs_ we have an entirely different method. Burns here
gives expression to his social philosophy in a contrast between rich
and poor, and adds a quaint humor to his criticism by placing it in
the mouths of the laird's Newfoundland and the cotter's collie. The
dogs themselves are delightfully and vividly characterized, and their
comments have a detachment that frees the satire from acerbity without
rendering it tame. The account of the life of the idle rich may be
that of a somewhat remote observer; it has still value as a record of
how the peasant views the proprietor. But that of the hard-working
farmer lacks no touch of actuality, and is part of the reverse side of
the shield shown in _The Cotter's Saturday Night_. Yet the tone is not
querulous, but echoes rather the quiet conviction that if toil is hard
it has its own sweetness, and that honest fatigue is better than
boredom.


THE TWA DOGS

'Twas in that place o' Scotland's Isle,