Page:Entertaining history of John Cheap the Chapman (1).pdf/22

22 burn you in the fire, though it be in your own house; but as you are a poor tailor, and neither a man nor a boy, I’ll do nothing but expose you for what you are. O dear honest ehapmanchapman [sic], cried his wife, ye mannua do that, and I’se gie you cheese and bread. No, no, you thieves, I’m for nothing but vengeance; no bribes for such. So as I was lifting up my pack, there was a pretty black cat which I spread my napkin over, took the four corners in my hand, carrying her as a bundle, until I came about the middle of the town, then provoking the dogs to an engagement with me, so that there came upon me four or five collies, then I threw the poor tailor’s cat in the midst of them, and a terrible battle ensued for some time, and baudrins had certainly died in the field, had I not interposed and got her off mortally wounded. The people who saw the battle alarmed the ta’lor, and he sallied out like a great champion, with his elwand in his hand. Go back, said I, you lousie dog, or I’ll tell about the needles; at which word he turned about. I travelled down the side of a water called Avon; and as I w’as coming past a mill-dam, there was a big clownish fellow lifting a pitcher of water out of the dam, so he dipt it full and set it down on the ground, staring at me he rumbled in himself out of sight o’er head and ears, and as soon as he got out, I said,— Yo ho, friend, did you get the fish? What