Page:History of John Cheap, the Chapman (7).pdf/15

15 rise now, for chapmen and every body was up; then she asked me if I had a custom of laughing in my sleep? Yes, said I, when I see any daft like thing, I can look and laugh at it as well sleeping as waking. A good preserve us, said she, ye'r an unco body, but ye needna wait on your porrage time, I'se gie you cheese and bread in your pouch, which I willingly accepted, and away I came.

Then I kept my course west by the foot of Pentland hills, where I got plenty of hair, good and cheap, besides a great plenty of old brass, which was an excellent article to make my little pack seem big and weighty. Then I came into a little country village, and going in by the side of a house, there was a great big cat sitting in a weaver's window, beiking herself in the sun, and washing her face with her feet; I takes her a civil knap on the nose, which makes her turn baekback [sic] in through the window, and the weaver having a plate full of hot pottage in the innerside to cool, poor baudrins ran through the middle of them, burnt her feet, and threw them on the ground, ran through the house crying fire and murder in her own language, which caused the weary wicked wabster to come to the door, where he attacked me in a furious rage, and I, to avoid the first shock, fled to the top of the midden, where, endeavouring to give me a kick, I catched him by the foot, and tumbled him back into the midden-dub, where both his head and shoulders went under dirt and water; but before I could recover my clwand or arms, the wicked wife and her twa sons was upon me in all quarters, the wife hung in my hair, while the twa sons boxed me both behind and before, and being thus overpowered by numbers, I was fairly beat by this wicked webster, his troops being so numerous.