Page:Fun upon fun, or, The comical and merry tricks of Leper the tailor (2).pdf/10

10 work, and was ignorant of the story, she cries out, Fye upon ye, woman, fye upon ye! What's the matter, sister, says she what's the matter! I think you might let your work stand for ae day, when your daughters are baith lying corpse. My bairns corpse! I am certain they went to bed hale and fair last night. But I tell you, says the other, the dead bell has been thro' warning the folks to the burial; then the mother cries out, О the villain! O the villain! that he did not send me word.—So they both ran, and the mother as soon as she entered the house, flies to the bed, crying, O my bairns, my dear bairns; on which the sluts rose up in a consternation, to the great surprise of the beholders, and the great mortification of the girls, who thought shame to set their noses out of doors, and to the great diversion of the whole town.

Leper and his master went to a gentleman's house to work, where there was a saucy house-keeper, who had more ignorance and pride than good sense and manners; she domineered over her fellow servants in a tyrannical manner. Leper resolved to mortify her pride; so he finds an ant's nest, and takes their white eggs, grinds them to a powder, and puts them into the dish her supper sowens was to be put in.