Page:Entertaining history of John Cheap the Chapman (1).pdf/4

4 began to ask for lodging, then every wife to get me away would either give me a cogful of kail, or a piece of cake. Well says I to myself, if this be the way, I shall begin in the morning to ask for lodging, or any time when I am hungry. Thus I eontinuedcontinued [sic] going from house to house, until my belly was like to burst, and my pockets eouldcould [sic] hold no more; at last I came to a farmer’s house, but thinking it not dark enough to prevail for lodging, I sat down upon a stone at the end of the house, till day light would go away; and as I was getting up to go into the house, out comes the goodwife, and sat down at the end of the stone. I being at the other, there she began to let off her water with full force, which I bore with very modestly, till near an end; then she made the wind follow with such force, as made, as I thought the very stone I leaned upon to move, which made me burst out into laughter; then up gets the wife and runs for it; I followed hard after into the house, and as I entered the door, I heard thegoodman saying, Ay, ay, goodwife, what’s the haste, you run sae fast.

No more passed, until I addressed the goodman for quarters; which he answered, ‘indeed lad, we hae nae beds but three, my wife and I ourselves twa, and the twa bits o’ little anes, Willy and Jenny lie in ane; the twa lads, our twa servant men, Willy Black and Tom I’ve, lie