Page:History of John Cheap the comical chapman.pdf/17

 empty seats but one big farm where none sat but one woman by herself; and so I set myself down beside her, not knowing where I was until sermon was done, when the minister began to scold her using her merry bit against law or license; and then she began to whinge and yule like a dog, which made me to run cursing and swearing, before the blessing was done ; I then came home to my lodging house and went to dinner with the goodman, it being the custom in that place to eat pease bread to their broth, and corn cakes to their flesh, so the goodwife laid down a corn cake and a pease scone to the goodman and the same to me, the pease one for the broth, and the corn one for the beef, and as the goodman and I sat together, when he broke off the pease cake to his broth, I was sure to break as much off the cake below it, and when he came to eat the flesh, I did the same, and he eat the course and me the fine.

PART III,

I travelled then west by Falkirk, by the foot of the great hills; and one night after I had got lodging, in a farmer's house, there happened a contest between the goodman and his mother, he being a young man, unmarried, 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 toe thin, and she swore by her cons0cience they would be thick enough if ill hands and ill een be awa frae them; a sweet be wi’ us mither, said he, do ye think I’m a witch? witch here or witch there said the wife, swearing by her soul and that’s nae banning, they’ll be good substantial meat, a what do ye say chapman? Indeed goodwife, said I, sowens is but soft meat at the best, but if ye mak them thick enough and put