Books: Return of Rantin' Rab

THE MERRY MUSE (317 pp.)—Eric Linklater—Harcourt, Brace ($3.95).

"Hand off your hands, young man,"

she said,

"And dinna sae uncivil be;

Gif ye hae onie hive for me,

0, wrang na my virginitie!"

. . . Upon the morrow, when we raise,

I thank'd her for her courtesie,

But ay she blush'd, and ay she sigh'd,

And said:—"Alas, ye've ruin'd me!"

—The Lass That Made the Bed

This sly threnody to the dead innocence of an innkeeper's daughter is as randy as Editors W. E. Henley and T. F. Henderson allowed Robert Burns to be in the magnificent...