Page:History of John Cheap the chapman (2).pdf/5

 weel kend I am com'd of good honest fouks. It may be so goodwife, said I, but ye look rather the other way, when ye would lodge the deil in your house, and ca' out a poor chapman to die, such a stormy night as this. What do you say! says she, there was na a bonnier night since winter came in nor thithis [sic]. 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 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 e'er 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 out 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; 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 steighling 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 bearing 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 houses in it.