Page:Waverley Novels, vol. 22 (1831).djvu/231



"Did you see him?" said Dame Alison Crane, mistress of the inn bearing that sign, and deigning to term HUSBAND the owner thereof, a mean-looking hop-o'-my-thumb sort or person, whose halting gait, and long neck, and meddling, henpecked insignificance are supposed to have given origin to the celebrated old English tune of "My name hath a lame tame Crane."

On this occasion he chirped out a repetition of his wife's question, "Didst see the devil, Jack Hostler, I say?"

"And what if I did see un, Master Crane?" replied Jack Hostler, for, like all the rest of the household, he paid as little respect to his master as his mistress herself did.

"Nay, nought, Jack Hostler," replied the pacific Master Crane; "only if you saw the devil, methinks I would like to know what un's like?"

"You will know that one day, Master Crane," said his helpmate, "an ye mend not your manners, and mind your business, leaving off such idle palabras.--But truly, Jack Hostler, I should be glad to know myself what like the fellow was."

"Why, dame," said the hostler, more respectfully, "as for what he was like I cannot tell, nor no man else, for why I never saw un."

"And how didst thou get thine errand done," said Gaffer Grimesby, "if thou seedst him not?"

"Why, I had schoolmaster to write down ailment o' nag," said Jack Hostler; "and I went wi' the ugliest slip of a boy for my guide as ever man cut out o' lime-tree root to please a child withal."