Page:History and comical transactions of Lothian Tom (7).pdf/4

 4 Comical Tranfactions of Lothian Tom.

ning with a long pole to beat off the dogs, and haul her afhore: What now, fays Tom, If you be going to take part with my ene- mies, you fhall have part of their reward ; then gives the old woman fuch a pufh, that fhe tumbled into the dam over head and ears, befide her beloved cat, and would un- doubtedly have perifhed in the water, had not one of the people who was there, look- ing at the diverfion, come to her relief. After this Tom was fent to the fchool, to keep his hand out of an ill turn: and having an old canker’d crab-witted fellow for his dominie, they were always at variance, for if Tom had got his whips, which he often deferved, he was fure to be revenged upon his mafter again for it. So Tom perceiving his mafter had, a clofe-ftool in a little clofet within the fchool, where he went and eafed himfelf when need was : Tom got a penny- worth of gun-powder, and fprinkled it on the ground directly before the feat, and laid a little of it along in a train to the fire-fide, then perceiving when his mafter went into it, and as he was loofing down his breeches, fet fire to the train, which blew it all about his mafter’s bare hips, and fcorched him terribly, befides the fright, for which Tom was feverely whipt; yet in a little after he began to ftudy revenge on his mafter. So it happened one day as Tom went in- to the mafter’s houfe, the wife was ftooping into a big meal barrel, to bring out fome