Page:History of John Cheap the chapman (3).pdf/8

 to go and lift my cantrups, which I did, upon her promising never to deny a hungry traveller meat nor drink, whether they had money to pay for't or not; and never to serve the poor with the old proverb, 'Go home to your own parish,' but give them less or more as ye see them in need. This she faithfully promised to do while she lived, and with milk, we drank towards her cow's good health and her own, not forgetting her husband's and the bulls, as the one was goodman of the house, and the other of the byre; and away we came in all haste, lest some of a more understanding nature should come to 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, we was obliged to stay there, and the house being very throng, we could get no bed but the servant-lass's, which we was to have for a penny-worth of pins and needles, and she was to ly 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 ly in; one of them swore his broad sword should fail him, 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 many 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 there feet was swelled with