Page:Comical tricks of Lothian Tom (6).pdf/15

 my bed, it has not been made these two weeks, and now it is about the time the maid makes all the rest, so I'll go and make mine too. No, no, says his master, go to your plough, and I'll cause it to be made every night. Then, says Tom, I'll plough two or three furrows more in the time, so Tom gained his end.

One day a butcher came and bought a fine fat calf from Tom's master, and Tom laid it on the horse's neck, before the butcher. When he was gone: now, says Tom, what will hold master but I'll steal the calf from the butcher before he goes two miles off? Says his master, I'll hold a guinea you don't. Done, says Tom. Into the house he goes, and takes a good shoe of his master's and runs another way across a field, till he got before the butcher, near the corner of a hedge, where there was an open and turning of the way; here Tom places himself behind the hedge, and throws the shoe into the middle of the highway; so, when the butcher came riding up, with his calf before 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 shoe without its neighbour? So on he rides and lets it lie. Tom then slips out and takes up the shoe, and runs across the fields until he got before the butcher, at