Page:Entertaining history of John Cheap the Chapman (1).pdf/18

18 granted, thinking I was some genteel packman, with a rich paekpack [sic]; and being weary with travel could take but little supper; being permitted to lie in the spence beside the goodman’s bed, the goodwife being very hard of hearing, she thought that every body was so, for when she went to bed, she eriescries [sic] out A how hearie goodman, is na yon a braw moderate chapman we hae here the night, he took just seven soups o’ our sowens, and that fill’d him fu’; a’ dear Andrew man, turn ye about an’ tak my cauld a—se in your warm lunehoeh. On the morrow I went to the kirk, with the goodman, and I missed him about the door, went into the middle of the kirk, but could see no empty seats but one big firm, where none sat but one woman by herself, and so I set myself down beside her, not knowing where I was, until sermon was over, when the minister began to rebuke her for using her Merry-bit against law or license; and then she began to whinge and yowl like a dog, which made me run out cursing, before the minister had given the blessing.

III. I TRAVELLED then west by Falkirk, by the foot of the great hills; and one night after I had got lodging in a farmer’s house, there happened a contest between the goodman and his mother, he being a young man unmarried, as I