Page:Comical transactions of Lothian Tom (5).pdf/19

 ( 17 ) master, but I’ll steal that calf from the butcher before he goes two miles off?' ' Why,' says his master, ‘ I’ll hold a guinea you don’t.' ‘ Done,' says Tom, In he goes, and gets a good shoe of his master’s, and runs another way across the fields, until he got before the butcher, near to the corner of a hedge, where there was an open and turning of the way ; here Tom darts himself behind the hedge, and throws the shoe in the middle of the high-way; then up comes the butcher, riding, and his calf behind him : ‘ Hey,' said he to himself, ‘ there’s a good shoe, if I knew how to get .on my calf again, I would light for it: but what signifies one without its neighbour ?’ So off he goes, and lets it lie. Tom then slips out, and takes up the shoe again, and runs across the fields, until he got in before the butcher, at another open of the hedge, about half a mile distant, and there he throws out the shoe again, on the middle of the road ; then up comes the butcher, and seeing it, says to himself, ‘ Now, I shall have a pair of good shoes for the lift- ing;’ and down he comes, lays the calf on the ground, and tying his horse to the hedge, runs back, thinking to get the other she, in which time, Tom whips up the calf and shoe, and home he comes.