Page:Entertaining history of John Cheap the Chapman (1).pdf/9

9 money to pay for’t or not; and never to serve the poor with the old proverb, “Go home to your own parish,” but gave them less or more as you see them in need. This she faithfully promised to do while she lived, and with milk we drank to the cow’s good health and her own, not forgetting her husband’s and the bull’s, as the one was goodman of the house, and the other of the byre; and away we came in all haste, lest some of a more understanding nature should come to hear of it, and follow after us.

In a few days thereafter we came to an alehouse in a muir far distant from any other, it being a sore day of wind and rain, we could not travel, but were obliged to stay there: and the house being very throng, we could get no beds but the servant lass’s, which we were to have for a penny worth of pins and needles, and she was to lie with her master and mistress. But as we were going to bed, in comes three Highland drovers on their way from England; the landlord told them that the beds were all taken up but one, that two chapmen were to lie in: one of them swore his broad sword should fail him if a chapman lay there that night. They took our bed and made us sit by the fire all night; I put on a great many peats, and when the drovers were fast asleep I put on a big brass pan full of water and boiled their brogs therein for the space