Page:History of John Cheap the chapman (2).pdf/3



The following Relation is taken from his own mouth Verbatim.

JOHN CHEAP, by chance, at some certain time doubtless against my will, was born at the Hottom, near Habertehoy mill. My father was a Scots Highlandman, 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 great 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 I began to consider the danger of deep ditches, midden-dubs, biting dogs, and boggles in barns, bangster wives and wet 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, till the kail be a' cuttied up and then to lick colley's leavings?

My first journey was through old Kilpatrick. All the day long I got no meat nor money, until the evening, I began to ask for lodging, then every wife, to get me away, would either give me a cogful of kail, or a piece of cake. Well, says I to myself, if this be the way, I shall begin in the morning to ask for lodging, or at any time when I am hungry. Thus I continued going from house to house, until my belly was like to burst, and my pockets could hold no more; at last I came to a farmer's house, but thinking it not dark enough to prevail for lodging, I sat down upon a stone at the end of the house, till day-light would go away out of the west; and as I was getting up to go into the house, out comes the goodwife, as I supposed her to be, and sat down at