Page:Scots piper's queries, or, John Falkirk's cariches (1).pdf/16

 need any tying, and how far was between the byre and the house? just butt and ben, up and down two staps of a stane stair, then says the priest, why did you not cry to the folks in the house? Indeed sir, said she, I could not get crying for laughing at it.

An old soldier being on a furlough from the north of Scotland, having got no breakfast, fell very hungry by the way, and no alehouse being near, came into a farmer's house, and desired they would sell him some bread, or any kind of victuals; to which the surly goodwife reply'd, she never sold any bread, and she was not going to begin with him, he had but three miles and a bittock to an ale-house, and he might march on, and she did fair enough when she gied bits of bread for naething to beggars, tho' she gied nane to idle sodgers, he had naething to do there awa': Hout said the goodman, gie him a ladle fu' o' our kail, he's been ay somebody's bairn before he was a sodger: What! said she, there's not a drop in the pot, they're a' in the plate before you: then gie him a spoon and let him sup wi' us: the soldier gets a spoon, and thinking he could sup all he saw himself, the first soup he put in his mouth spouted it back again in the plate, and cries out, O my sore mouth, the hide's all of it yet since I had the clap: then every one threw down his spoon the soldier got all to sup himself; the wife stood cursing and scolding all the while, and when he