Page:History of John Cheap the chapman (3).pdf/17

 the goodman and his mother, he being a young man unmarried, as I understood, and formerly their sowens had been too thin; so the goodman being a sworn birly man of that barony, came to survey the sowens before they went on the fire, and actually swore they were o'er thin, and she swore by her conscience they would be thick enough if ill hands and ill een baed awa' frae them: A sweet be here mither, said he, do ye think that I'm a witch? Witch here or witch there, said the wife, swearing by her saul, and that was nae banning, she said, they'll be good substantial meat, a' what say ye chapman? indeed goodwife, said I sowens is but saft meat at the best but if ye make them thick enough and put a good lump of butter in them they'll do very well for a supper; I true sae lad, said she, ye hae some sense; so the old woman put on the pot with her sowens, and went to milk her cows, leaving me to steer; the goodman her son, as soon as she went out, took a great cog full of water and put it into the pot among the sowens, an then went out of the house, and left me alone: I considered what sort of a pish-the-bed supper I was to get if I staid there, I thought to set out, but takes up a pitcher with water, and fills up the pot until it was running over, and then takes up my pack aud comes about a mile farther that night, leaving the honest woman and her son, to sup their wantry witcht sowens, at their own leisure.

I then turned towards the east, through a place called Slamannen, and was lodged one night near a place called Tod's Bughts, where there was a boul-horn'd goodwife, but a very civil goodman; when I went in, she took up a dish from the dog wherein was a few he had left, and with a collection more from other cogs, she offered them to me, which I