Page:Comical tricks of Lothian Tom (6).pdf/3

 and the more he flung and struck at it, it rebounded back, and struck him again, the battle lasted with great fury for a long time which was good fun for Tom, until his father hearing some noise in the stable, came to know the matter, and was surprised to see the poor animal tanning his own hide, with his legs all cut and bloody! he cut the rope and the battle was ended; but the poor horse would never afterwards kick at anything that came behind him.

It happened one day that Tom went a fishing, and brought home a few small fish, which his grandmother's cat snapt up in the dark. So Tom to have justice of the cat for so doing, catches her, and put her into a little tub or cog, then sets her adrift in a small mill-dam, ordering her to go a fishing for herself; then set two or three dogs upon her, and a most terrible sea fight ensued, as ever was seen on fresh water; for if any of the dogs, when attempting to beard her, set up their noses, baudrins came flying to that place, to repulse them with her claws; then the vessel was like to be overset by the weight of herself, so she had to flee to the other, and finding the same there from thenee to the middle, where she sat mewing, always turning herself about, combing their noses with her foot. The old woman being informed of the dangerous situation