Page:Comical history of Simple John and his twelve misfortunes (13).pdf/3

3 estate, to the age of twenty-one years, he told his mither he would hae a wife o’ some sort, either young or auld, widow or lass, if they had but heads and lips, tongue and tail, he should tak them, and weel I wat, mither, quoth he, they’ll get a lumping pennyworth o’ me, get me wha will

Hos mither tells him o’ the black butcher on Ti’ot-side, wha had three douchters, and every ane o’ them had something. There was Kate, Ann, and Girzy, had a hundred merks the piece. Kate and Ann had baith bastards. Girzy the eldest had a hump back, a high breast, baker legged, a short wry neck, thrawn mouth, anh goggle-ey’d; a perfect Æsop of the female kind, with as many crooked conditions within as without, a very lump of loun-like ill-nature, row’d a’ together, as if she had been nine months in a haggis—a second edition of crook backed Richard, an old English King, that was born with teeth to bite a’ round about him; and yet the wight gaed mad to be married.