Page:History of John Cheap, the Chapman (7).pdf/5

5 honest folks; it may be so, goodwife, said I, but ye look rather the other way, when ye would lodge the d---l in your house, and ca' out a poor chapman to die, such a stormy night as this. What do ye say, says she, there wasna a bonnier night since winter came in than this. O goodwife, what are ye saying, do ye no mind when you and I was at the east end of the house, such a noise of wind and water was then: a wae worth the filthy body, said she, is not that in every part? What, said the goodman, I wat weel there was nae rain when I came in. The wife then shoots me out, and bolted the door behind me. Well, said I, but I shall be through between thy mouth and thy nose ere the morrow. It being now so dark, and I a stranger, could see no place to go to, went into the corn yard, but finding no loose straw, I fell a drawing one of their stacks, sheaf by sheaf, until I pulled out a threave or two, and got into the hole myself, where I lay as warm as a pie. The goodman, on the morning, perceiving the heap of corn sheaves come running to carry it away, and stop up the hole in the stack wherein I lay with some of the sheaves; so with the steighling of the straw, and him talking to others, cursing the thieves who had done it, swearing they had stole six sheaves of it; I then skipped out of the hole, ho, ho, said I, goodman, you're not to bury me alive in your stack; he then began to chide me, vowing to keep my pack for the damage I had done: whereupon I took his servants witnesses he had robbed me; when hearing me urge him so, he gave me my pack again, and off I came to the next house, and told the whole of the story.

My next exploit was near Carluke, between Hamilton and Lanark; where, on a cold stormy