Page:Comical transactions of Lothian Tom (3).pdf/10

10 the cow to a public house within a little of the fair, and left her till the fair was over then drives her home, before him; and, as soon as they came home, the cow began to rout as she used to do, which made the old woman to rejoice, thinking it was her own black cow, but, when she saw her white face, she sighed and said, Alas! thou'll ne'er be like the kindly brute, my bonny Black-lady, and yet you rout as like her as ony ever I did hear; But, says Tom to himself, 'Tis a mercy you know not what she says, or all would be wrong yet. So in two or three days the old woman put forth her braw rigget cow in the morning with the rest of her neighbour's cattle, but it came on a sore day of heavy rain, which washed away all the white from her free and back, so that the old woman's Black-lady came home at night, and her rigget cow went away with the shower and was never heard of: But Tom's father having some suspicion, and looking narrowly into the cow's face, found some of the whiteness not washed away, and then he caught hold of Tom, and gave him a hearty beating, and sent him a way to seek his fortune with a skin full of sore bones,