Page:History of John Cheap, the chapman (8).pdf/9

 with milk, we drank towards her cow's good health and her own, nor forgetting her huſband's and the bull's, as the one was the goodman of the house, and the other of the byre; and away we came in all haſte, left ſome of a more underſtanding nature ſhould come and hear of it, and follow after us.

In a few days thereafter we came to an ale-houſe in a muir, far diſtant from any other, it being a ſore day of wind and rain, we could not travel, was obliged to ſay there, and the houſe being throng, we could get no bed but the ſervant laſs's, which we was to have for a penny's worth of pins and needles, and ſhe was to lie with her maſter and miſtreſs: But as we were going to bed, in comes three Highland drovers on their way home from England; the landlord told them that the beds were all taken up but one; that two chapmen was to lie in; one of them ſwore his broad ſword ſhould fail hin, if a chapman lay there that night They took our bed, and made us ſit by the fire all night. I put on a great may peats, and when the drovers were fast aſleep, I put on a big braſs pan full of water, and boiled their brogs therein, for the ſpace of half an hour, then lays them as they were, every pair by themſelves, ſo when they roſe, every one began to chide another, ſaying, "Hup pup, ye ſheing a brog:", for not one of them would ſerve a child of ten years old, being ſo boiled in: The landlord persuaded them that their feet was ſwelled with the hard travelling, being ſo wet the laſt night, and they would go on well enough if they had travelled a mile or two. Now the Highlandmen laught at me the night be fore, when they lay down in the bed I was to have, but I laught as much to ſee them all three trot away in the morning with their boiled brogs in their hands.