Page:History of John Cheap the chapman (1).pdf/4



JOHN CHEAP, by chance, at some certain time, doubtless against my will, was born at the Hottom, near Rubmydock Mill. My father was a Scotch Highlander, and my mother a Yorkshire wench, but honest, which causes me to be of a mongrel kind; I made myself a chapman when very young, in hopes of being rich when I became old; but fortune was fickle, and so was I, for I had not been a chapman above two days, until l began to consider the danger of deep ditches, midden dubs, bitting dogs, bogles in barns, bangster wives and weet sacks, and what comfort is it, says I, to lie in the cow’s oxter, the length of a cold winter night ; to sit behind backs tiii the kail be a’ cuttied up, and then to lick colly’s leavings.

My first journey was through old Kilpatrick, I got no meat nor money, until the evening, I began to ask for lodging, then every wife to get me away,