PART I.
The following Relation is taken from his own mouth verbatim.
John Cheap, the chapman, was a comical, short, thick fellow, with a broad face and a long nose; both lame and lazy, and something lecherous among the lasses. He chose rather to sit idle than work at any time, as he was a hater of hard labour. No man needed offer him cheese and bread after he cursed he would not have it; for he would blush at bread and milk when hungry, as a beggar doth at a bawbee. He got the name of John Cheap, the Chapman, by selling twenty needles for a penny, and twa leather laces for a farthing.
I was born at the Hottom, near the Habertehoy Mill. My father was a Scotch Highlander, and my mother a York-shire Wench, which causes me to be of a mongrel kind; I made myself a chapman when very young, in hopes of being rich when I became old.
My first journey was through Old Kilpatrick, 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 a 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, I sat down upon a stone at the end of the house, till day light would go away; and as I was getting up to go into the house, out comes the goodwife, and sat down at the end of the stone. I being at the other, there she began to let 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 door, I heard the goodman saying, Ay, ay, goodwife, what’s the haste, you run sae fast.
No more passed, until I addressed the goodman for quarters; which he answered, ‘indeed lad, we hae nae beds but three, my wife and I ourselves twa, and the twa bits o’ little anes, Willy and Jenny lie in ane; the twa lads, our twa servant men, Willy Black and Tom I’ve, lie in anither; auld Maggs my mither, and the lass Jean Tirrem lie thegither, 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 lie heads and thraws wi’ them, and keep on my breeks. A good keep me, quo’ the lass frae a’ temptations to sin, although thou be but a callan, heth I’ll rather lie wi’ Sannock Garnor. Hout awa, quo, the auld wife, the poor lad may lie an a bottle o straw beyond the fire. No, no, cries the goodwife, he’s no be here the night, or I’se no be here. Dear goodwife, said I, what ails you at me! If you will not let me stay, you’ll not hinder me to go where I please. Ay, ay, said she, gae where you like; then I got in beyond the fire, beside the goodman. Now, said I goodwife, I like to be here. A d——l be here, and ye be here the night, said she. Ho, ho, said I, but I’m here first and first comed, first served, goodwife; but if the ill thief be a friend of yours, you’ll hae room for him too. Ye thief-like widdifu’ said she, are ye evening me to be sib to the foul thief; tis weel kend I am com’d o’ gude honest folks. It may be so, goodwife, said I, but ye look rather the other way, when you would lodge the devil in your house, and ca’ out a poor chapman to die, such a stormy night as this. What do ye say, says she, there wasna a bonnier night since winter came in than this? O goodwife, what are ye saying, do ye no 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; I wat weel there was nae rain when I came in. The wife then pushes me out, and bolted the door behind me. Well, said I, but I shall be through between thy mouth and thy nose ere the morn. 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. The goodman, on the morning, perceiving the heap of corn sheaves, came running to carry it away, and stop the hole in the stack wherein I lay with some of the sheaves, so with the steighling of the straw, and him talking to others, cursing the thieves who had done it, swearing they had stole six sheaves of it; I then skipped 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 to 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, and told the whole of the story.
After this I travelled up by the water of Clyde, near the foot of Tintock hill, where I met with a sweet companion, who was an older traveller than I, and he gave me some 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 worth of her sour milk: Na, na, said she, I’ll neither sell butter, bread nor milk, ’tis 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 have 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 miles and a bittock frae this; a thief ane was to swear you there, an’ it wasna auld Willy Miller the cobbler the ill thief, a nither minister nor a magistrate ever was in it a’. O but, says the other lad, the Temple-bar he means by is at London. Yea, yea, lad, an’ ye be com’d frae Lunun ye’re little worth. London, said he, is but at home to the place he comes from. A dear man, quoth she, and where in the warl’ comes he frae? All the way from Italy, where the Pope of Rome dwells, says he. A sweet be wi’ us, quoth she, for the fouks there awa is a’ witches and warlocks, deils, brownies, and fairies. Well I wat that’s 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, lifts twa or three long straws, and casting knots on them, into the byre I went, and throws a knotted straw on every cow’s 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 the door, and lifted a stone, and threw it over the house, muttering some words, which I knew not myself, and concluded with these words; thou monster, Diable, 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.
The wife hearing the aforesaid 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, where she made us eat heartily of butter and cheese; and earnestly pleaded with me to go and lift my cantrips, 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 never to serve the poor with the old proverb, “Go home to your own parish,” but gave them less or more as you see them in need. This she faithfully promised to do while she lived, and with milk we drank to the cow’s good health and her own, not forgetting her husband’s 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.
In a few days thereafter we came to an ale house in a muir far distant from any other, it being a sore day of wind and rain, we could not travel, but were obliged to stay there: and the house being very throng, we could get no beds but the servant lass’s, which we were to have for a penny worth of pins and needles, and she was to lie with her master and mistress. But as we were going to bed, in comes three Highland drovers on their way from England; the landlord told them that the beds were all taken up but one, that two chapmen were to lie 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 spewing a brog:” for not one of them would serve a child ten years old, being so boiled in. The landlord persuaded them that their feet were swelled with the hard travelling, being so wet the last night, and they would go on well enough if they had travelled a mile or two. Now the Highlandmen laughed at me the night before when they lay down in the bed I was to have; but I laughed as much to see them trot away in the morning with boiled brogues in their hands.