Part I.
The following relation is taken from his own mouth, verbatim.
I John Cheap by chance, at some certain time, doubtless against my will, was born at the Hottom, near Habertehoy mill: My father was a Scots Highlandman, and my mother aYorkshire wench, but honest, which causes me to be of a mongrel kind; I made myself a chapman when very young, in great hopes of being rich when I became old; but fortune was fickle and so was I; for I had not been a chapman above two days, until I began to consider the deep ditches, midden dubs, biting dogs and wiet sacks: And what comfort is it, says I, to lye in a cows oxter, the length of a cold winter night: to sit behind backs, till the kail be a cuttied up, and then to lick colley’s leavings.[72]
My first journey was through old Kilpatrick, all the day long I got no meat nor money until the evening, I began to ask for lodging, then every wife to get me away, would either give me a cogful of kail, or piece of cake. Well says I to myself, if this be the way, I shall begin in the morning to ask for lodging, or any time when I am hungry. Thus I continued going from house to house, until my belly was like to burst, and my pockets could hold no more; at last I came to a farmer’s house, but thinking it not dark enough to prevail for lodging, sat down upon a stone at the end of the house, till day-light would go away out of the west; and as I was going to get up to go in to the house, out comes the goodwife, as I supposed her to be, and sat down at the end of the stone I being at the other, there she began to make off her water with full force, which I bore with, very modestly, till near an end; then she made the wind follow with such force, as made (as I thought) the very stone I leaned upon to move, which made me burst out into laughter; then up gets the wife, and runs for it; I followed hard after into the house, and as I entered the house, I heard the goodman, saying, Ay, ay, goodwife, What’s the haste, you run so?
No more passed, until I addressed myself to the goodmanfor quarters; which he answered, “Indeed lad, we hae nae beds but three, my wife and I, our sells twa, and the twa bits a little anes, Willie and Jenny lies in ane, the twa lads our twa servant men Willie Black and Tam, lies in anither, and auld Mags my mither, and the lass Jean Tirram lies the gither, and that fills them a’.” O but says I, Goodman, there is some of them fuller than others, you may let me lie with your mither and the lass; I shall ly heads and thraws wi’ them, and keep on my breeks. A good keep me, quo’ the lass, frae a’ temptations to sin, altho’ thou be but a callen, heth I’ll rather ly wi’ Sannock Garner. No, no, cries the goodwife, he’s no be here the night. Dear good-wife, said I, what ails you at me? a d—l be here, an’ ye be here the night, said she; ho, ho, said I, but I’m here first, and first com’d first serv’d, good-wife; but an’ the ill thief be a friend of your’s, you’ll have room for him too. Ye thief like widdyfu’, said she, are ye evening me to be sib to the foul thief; it’s weel kend I am come of good honest fouks: It may be so goodwife, said I, but ye look rather the other way, when ye would lodge the d—l in your house and ca’ out a poor chapman to die, such a stormy night as this. What do ye say! says she, there was na a bonnier night since winter came in nor this. O goodwife, what are you saying! Do ye not mind, when you and I was at the east end of the house, such a noise of wind and water was then; a wae worth the filthy body, said she, is not that in every part. What said the goodman, a wat well there was nae rain when I came in: The wife then shuts me out, and bolted the door behind me: Well, said I, but I shall be through between thy mouth and thy nose or the morrow. It being now so dark, and I a stranger, could see no place to go to, went into the corn yard, but finding no loose straw I fell a drawing one of their stacks, sheaf by sheaf, until I pulled out a threave or two, and got into the hole myself, where I lay as warm as a pye; but the goodman in the morning, perceiving the heap of corn sheaves, came running to carry it away, and stop up the hole in the stack wherein I lay, with some of the sheaves, so with the steighling of the straw, and him cursing the thieves who had done it: Ithen skipping out of the hole, ho, ho, said I, goodman, you’re not to bury me alive in your stack: He then began to chide me, vowing he would keep my pack for the damage I had done: whereupon, I took his servants witnesses he had robbed me; when hearing me urge him so, he gave me my pack again, and off I came to the next house, where I told the whole story.
My next exploit was near Carluke, between Hamiltown and Lanerk: Where on a cold stormy night, I came to a little town with four or five houses in it; I went twice through it, but none of them would give me the credit to stand all night among their horse, or yet to ly in their cow’s oxter: At last I prevailed with a wife, if her husband was willing, to let me stay, if he was not against it, to which he answered, “If I should ly in his midden-dib, I should get no quarters from him that night; a wheen lazy idle villains rins a to be chapman, comes through the country fashing fouks, ay seeking quarters; the next day ye’ll be gaun wi’ a powder’d pirrewig, and a watch at your arse, and winna let fouk stand afore your chop doors, ye’ll be sae saucy.”
After hearing my sentence from the goodman, expecting no relief but to ly without, yet I perceived when he came out of the barn, he only drew too the door behind him: So when he was gone, I slipt into the barn, and by help of one of the kiples, climbs up the mou, and there dives down among the sheaves, and happed myself all over, so that I lay as warm as the goodman himself. But in the morning long before day, two fellows came into the barn, and fell a threshing, that by their disturbance I could sleep no more; at last I got up with all my hair hanging over my face, and when he that stood on the opposite side perceived me, I made my eyes to roll, and wrayed my face in a frightful manner, so that the poor fellow supposed he had seen the deil, or something as ill, gave a rore as if he had been sticked, and out at the door he runs; the other following after him crying, Wa’ Johny man, what did you see? O! Sandy, Sandy, the deil’s on the tap o’ the mou’, sheavling his mouth at me; I’ll not be so well this monthman, my heart’s out o’ its hole, wou but yon be a fearfu’ like fake indeed, it would fright ony living creature out o’ their senses.
I hearing the fear they were in, cried unto them not to be frighted, for I was not the deil, but a poor chapman who could not get quarters last night a foul fa’ thy carcase sir, for our Jock is through the midden-dib, dirt and a’ the gither; he who went last came again, but the other man ran into the house, and told what he had seen: The goodman and his wife came running, he with a grape in his hand, and her with the Bible,[73]the one crying Sandy, Sandy, is’t true that the deil was in the barn; Na, na, said he, it’s but a chapman, but poor Jock has gotten a fright wi’ him. They laughed heartily at the sport, took me in to breakfast, and by this time poor Johnny was gone to bed.[74]
After this I travelled up the water of Clyde, near the foot of Tintock-hill, where I met with a sweet companion, who was an older traveller than I, who gave me more information how to blow the goodwife, and sleek the goodman, with him I kept company for two months, and as we travelled down Tweed towards the border we being both hungry and could get nothing to buy for the belly, we came unto a wife who had been kirning, but she would give us nothing, nor sell so much as one halfpenny’s worth of her sour milk; Na, na, said she, I’ll neither sell butter, bread or milk, it’s a’ little enough to sair my ain family: ye that’s chapman may drink water, ye dinna work sair. Ay, but goodwife, said I, I hae been at Temple-bar, where I was sworn ne’er to drink water, if I could get better: What do ye say, said she, about Temple-bar? A town just about twa three mile and a bittock frae this: A thief ane was to swear there, an’ it wasna’ auld Willie Miller thecobler, the ill thief a neither minister nor magistrate ever was in’t a’.
O but says the other lad, the Temple-bar he means by is at London. Yea, yea, lad, an ye be cum’d frae London ye’re no muckle worth, for the fouks there awa, is a’ witches and warlocks, deils, brownies and fairies.[75]We’ll a wat that is true, said I, and that thou shalt know, thou hard hearted wretch, who would have people to starve or provoke them to steal. With that I rose and lifts twa or three long straws, and casting knots on them, into the byre I went and throws a knotted straw to every cows stake, saying, Thy days shall not be long: The wife followed, wringing her hands, earnestly praying for herself and all that was hers. I then came out at the door, and lifted a stone, running three times round about, and threw it over the house,[76]muttering some words, which I knew not myself, and concluding with these words, “Thou Monsieur Diable,[77]brother to Beelzebub god of Ekron, take this wife’s kirn, butter and milk, sap and substance, without and within, so that she may die in misery, as she would have others to live.”[78]
The wife hearing the aforsaid sentence, clapt her hands, and called out another old woman as foolish as herself, who came crying after us to come back, back we went, when she made us eat heartily of butter and cheese; then she earnestly pleaded with me to go and lift my cantrups, which I did, upon her promising never to deny a hungry traveller meat nor drink, whether they had money to pay for’t or not: and neverto serve the poor with the old proverb, Go home to your own parish;[79]but give them less or more, as ye see them in need. This faithfully she promisee to do while she lived, and with milk, we drank towards her cow’s health and her own, not forgetting her husband and the bull’s, as the one was goodman of the house, and the other of the byre; and away we came in all haste, lest some of a more understanding nature should come to hear of it, and follow after us.[80]
In a few days thereafter we came to an ale-house in a moor, far distant from any other, it being a sore day of wind and rain, we could not travel therefore was obliged to stay there, and the house being very throng, we could get no bed but the servant lasses, which we was to have for a pennyworth of pins and needles, and she was to ly with her master and mistress: But as we were going to bed, in comes three Highland drovers on their way home from England; the landlord told them that the beds were all taken up but one, that two chapmen was to ly in; one of them swore, his broad sword should fail him, if a chapman lay there that night. They took our bed, and made us sit by the fire all night: I put on a great many peats, and when the drovers were fast asleep, I put on a big brass pan full of water, and boiled their brogs therein, for the space of half an hour, then lays them as they were, every pair by themselves; so when they rose, every one began to chide another, saying, “Hup, pup, ye sheing a brog,” for not one of them would serve a child of ten years of age, being so boil’d in, the landlord persuaded them that their feet was swelled with their hard traveling, being so wet last night, and theywould go on well enough if they had travelled a mile or two. Now the Highlandmen laught at me the night before, when they lay down in the bed I was to have; but I laught as much to see them all three trot away in the morning with their boil’d brogs in their hands.