Page:Comical tricks of Lothian Tom (6).pdf/8

 with his whip in such unmerciful manner, that with the smart and shame together, she had not the least inclination to sleep for the remaining part of the day.

Tom being grown up to years and age of man, thought himself wiser and slyer than his father and there were several things about the house which he liked better than to work; so he turned to be a dealer amongst brutes, a cowper 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 his grandmother had plenty of money, but she would give him none; but the old woman had a good black cow of her own, which Tom went to the fields one evening and caught, and took her to 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 at night when it was dark, 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 cow. However, she employs Tom to go to a fair that was near by, and buy her another; she gives him three pounds which Tom accepts of very thankfully, and promises to buy her one as like the other as possibly