The Mad Pranks of Tom Tram, Son-in-law to Mother Winter / To Which Are Added His Merry Jests, Odd Conceits, and Pleasant Tales.

by active 1635-1671 Humphrey Crouch

TALE I.

Of a Scholar and a Tapster on a Winter night.

The tapster said, Sir, will you go to bed. No, quoth the scholar, there are thieves abroad, and would not willingly be taken napping. So the tapster left him, and being gone, in came a spirit into the chamber, with his head under his arm, so that he durst not stir, but cried out, Help! help! fire! thieves! thieves! So when they of the house came to him they asked him, what was the matter! Oh, quoth he, the devil was here, and spoke to me with his head under his arm; but now I will go to bed, and if he comes again, I will send him to the tapster to help him to make false reckonings: It being a cold night, quoth he, I will first put fire to toe, that is, I will warm my toes by the fire, then I'll go to bed. And so he did, and a great reckoning the next morning put the scholar out of his jest, saying, that was in earnest made too large a reckoning, he being but poor Sir John of Oxford.