Page:History and comical transactions of Lothian Tom (2).pdf/5

[ 7 ] left his eggs, and had the drams to pay for.

Tom was always playing tricks to his grandmother as he knew ſhe was rich, and would part with nothing to him; he lays in wait one night, and conceals himſelf in a corner until all was at reſt, Tom riſes and takes the keys of a drawer, and ſlips out about forty ſhillings, and ſhips off to Dalkeith on a Thurſday where his grandmother's ſervant girl came that day Tom was ſpending largely, and the girl who knew that Tom had no money, came home and told his grandmother that Tom had taken away her money, this ſo enraged him, that he laſhed her buttocks with a wheep in ſo unmerciful manner, that with the ſmart and ſhame together ſhe had not the leaſt inclination to ſleep the remaining part of the day.

Tom being grown up to the years and age of a man, thought himſelf more wiſer and flyer than his father; and there was ſeveral things about the houſe he liked better then to work so he turned to be a dealer among the brutes, a couper of horſes and co, &c. and even wet ware amongſt the brewers and brandy ſhops, until be couped himſelf to the room halter, and then his parents would ſupply him no more. He knew well his grandmother had plenty of money, but ſhe would give him none; but the old woman had a good black cow of her own, which Tom went to the elds one evening and catches, and takes her into an old waſte houſe, which ſtood at a diſtance from any other, and there he kept her two or three days giving her me t and drink when it was dark at night, and made the old woman believe ſome body had ſtain the co, for their winter mart, which was grief enough to the old woman for the loſs of her dearly beloved sow, However the employed Tom to go to the fair that was near by, and buy her another, gives him thr pounds; which Tom accepts very thankfully, and