Page:History of John Cheap, the Chapman (7).pdf/17

17 understood, and formerly their sowens had been too thin; so the goodman, being a sworn birlyman of that barony, came to survey the sowens before they went on the fire, and actually swore they were o'er thin; and she swore by her conscience, they would be thick enough, if ill hands and ill een baed awa frae them: A sweet be here, mither, said he, do you think that I'm a witch? Witch here, or witch there, said the wife swearing by her saul, and that was nae banning, she said, they’ll be gude substantial meat, a what say ye chapman? Indeed, goodwife, said I, sowens are but saft meat at the best, but, if you make them thick enough, and put a good lump efof [sic] butter in them, they'll do very well for a supper; I trow sae lad, said she, ye hae some sense: so the old woman put on the pot with her sowens, and went to milk her cows, leaving me to steer; the goodman, her son, as soon as she went out, took a great cog full of water and put it into the pot amongst the sowens, and then went out of the house and left me alone: I considering what sort of a pish-the-bed supper I was to get if I staid there, thought it fit to set out, but takes up a a pitcher of water, and fills up the pot until it was running over, and then takes up my pack, and comes about a mile farther that night, leaving the honest woman and her son, to sup their watery witched sowens at their own leisure.

I then returned towards the east through a place called Slamannan, and was lodged one night near a place called Todd's Bughts, where there was a boul-horned goodwife, but a very civil goodman; when I went in, she took up a dish from the dog, wherein was a few he had left, and with a collection more from other cogs, she