Page:History of John Cheap, the chapman (8).pdf/5

 'tis well kend I am come of good honeſt fouks It may be ſo, goodwife, ſaid I, but you look rather the other way, when you 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 was na a bonnier night ſince winter came in nor this. O goodwife, what are you ſaying! Do ye not 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, a wat well 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 or 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 pulled out a threave or two, and got into the hole myſelf, where I lay as warm as a pie; but the goodman in the morning, perceiving the heap of corn ſheaves, came running to carry it away, and stop up the hole in the ſtack wherein I lay, with ſome of the ſheaves, ſo with the ſteighding of the ſtraw, and him talking to others, curſing the thieves who had done it; ſwearing they had ſtole ſix threaves of it; I then ſkipping 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 he would 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, where I told the whole of the ſtory.

My next exploit was near Carluke, between Hamilton and Lanark: Where, on a cold ſtormy night, I came to a little town with four or five