Page:Comical transactions of Lothian Tom (5).pdf/11

 ( 9 ) per of horses and cows, &c. and even wet ware amongst the brewers and brandy shops, until he cowped himself to the toom halter; and then his parents would supply him no more. He knew well his grandmother had plenty of money, but she would give him none, but the old woman had a good black cow of her own : So Tom went to the fields one evening, and catches and takes her into an old waste house which stood at a distance from any other, and there he kept her two or three days, giving her meat and drink when it was dark at night, and made the old woman believe somebody had stolen the cow for their winter's mart, which was grief enough to the old woman, for the loss of her dearly beloved cow.However, she employs Tom to go to a fair that was near by, and buy her another; gives him three pounds, which Tom accepts of very thankfully, and promises to buy one as like the other as possibly he could get. Then he gets a piece of chalk, and brays it as small as meal, and steeps it in a little water, and therewith rubs over the cow’s face and back, which made her baith brucket and rigget. So Tom, in the morning, takes the cow to a public-house within a mile of the fair,