Page:Comical tricks of Lothian Tom (6).pdf/17

 again. No sooner was he gone with it, but Tom says, now master, what will you hold but I'll steal it from him again ere he two miles off? No no, says his master, I'll hold no more bets with you; but I'll give you a shilling if you do it. Done, says Tom, it shall cost you no more; and away he runs through the fields, until he came before the butcher, hard by the place where he stole the calf from him the day before, and there he lies down behind the hedge, and as the butcher came past, he put his hand on his mouth and cries baw, baw, like a calf. The butcher hearing this, swears to himself that there was the calf he had lost the day before: down he comes; and throws the calf on the ground, gets thro' the hedge in all haste, thinking he had no more to do but: to take it up; but as he came in at one part of the hedge, Tom jumped out at another, and gets the calf on his back; then goes over the hedge on the other side, and thro' the fields he came safely home with the calf on his back, while the poor butcher spent his time and labour in vain, running from hedge to hedge, and hole to hole, seeking the calf. So the butcher returning to his horse again, and finding his other calf gone, he concluded that it was done by some invisible spirit about that spot of ground, and so went home lament-