Page:Witty and entertaining exploits of George Buchanan (10).pdf/27

 then perceiving the lines on the inſide of the coach, which the biſhop came and read himſelf, they all conclude it to be done by George, but could make nothing of it; for the biſhop ſaid, to purſue him might make it worſe, but no better.

George was invited one day by a great lawyer to come and ſee a new building which he had lately built of fine free-ſtone and marble. He deſired George to gueſs what it was built with; George anſwers, Do you think that I do not know what it is built with? No, you do not, ſays the lawyer; Yes, do, ſays George, it cannot ſtand long, for malice and hatred is the mortar of it, and the ſtones are the heads of fooliſh people, poliſhed over with the tongue of an aſs. What, ſays the lawyer, do you compare me to an aſs? O! ſir, don't you remember that an aſs was made an advocate, and ſpoke againſt Balaam. The lawyer to this would give no anſwer, but took good night of George.

Three merchants, pedlars (as they profeſſed to be) came with a pack of goods, to put a trick upon a widow woman, who kept an inn on the highway ſide; after they had drunk very hearty, they deſired the Woman to lay up the pack ſecurely, and charged her ſtrictly, before witneſſes, to deliver it to none of them, unleſs they came altogether for it again. And in about three weeks thereafter, two of them returned and deſired the woman to give them the pack; telling her, that the other man was gone to ſuch affair with another pack, where they were all to meet; and that they were fellow-travellers, conjunct in trade, and how they had all a right to the pack alike; whereupon the poor ſimple Woman, not dreading any further harm, gave them the pack. So in a few days thereafter, the other man comes and demands the pack; the honeſt Woman told him plainly, that the other two men had been there before, and got it away; then he began to demonſtrate to the woman, what great danger ſhe was in, and forthwith raiſed a proceſs againſt her by law, which coſt the poor woman a waſt of money to defend, as the plea continued more than two full years; and a great court being one day to ſit upon the proceſs to decide it, which would undoubtedly have been done in ſavour of the purſuer, the proof being ſo clear, and the woman herſelf not denying what the bargain was when ſhe got the pack to keep. The poor Woman being in great ſtraits, her purſe being turned empty, and her attorney told her plainly, as her money was done, he could no longer defend her; the Wo-