Page:Wife of Beith (5).pdf/9

9 No lying wife as I suppose,

May enter in these gates within.

Abra'am, she said will you but spare

I hope you are not flyting free;

You of yourself had such a care,

Deny'd your wife and made a lie:

Go then I pray you let me be,

For I repent of all my sin,

Do thou but ope the gates to me,

And let me quietly come in.

Abra'am went back to Jacob then,

And told his grandson how to speed,

How that of her nothing he wan,

And that he thought the carling mad,

Then down came Jacob thro' the close

And said go backward down to hell:

Jacob, quoth she, I know your voice,

That gate pertaineth to thysell:

Of thy old trumphries I can tell,

With two sisters thou led'st thy life.

And the third part of these tribes twelve

Thou got with maids besides thy wife;

And stole thy father's bennison,

Only by fraud thy father frae;

Gave thou not him for venison,

A kid instead of beaken rae?

Jacob himself was tickled so,

He went to Lot where he was lying,

And to the gate pray'd him to go,

To staunch the carling of her crying.

Lot says fair dame make less ado,