Well, the corpse is dressed, and laid on the tap of the big chest, while neighbours sat by her condoling her misfortune, and how the funeral raisins were to be provided, said one the coffin must need be seen about first. Ay ay, he has some new deals in the barn, he bought them to make a bed o’, but we’ll no break them, there’s the auld barn door, and the caff kist will do well enough, ony thing’s gude enough to gang to the grave wi’; but O quo’ she send for Sandy, my honest auld servant, and he’ll see every thing right done; I’ll tell him where he’ll get siller to do any thing wi’, he’s the lad that will not see me wrang’d; then Sandy comes wrying his face, and rubbing his eyes. O Sandy, there’s a sad alteration here, and ba-a she cries like a bitten calf, O sirs, will ye gang a’ butt the house till I tell ye what to do; butt they went, and there she fell a kissing of Sandy, and said, now, my dear, the auld chattering ghaist is awa and we’ll get our will o’ ither; be as haining of every thing as ye can, for thou kens it’s a’ thy ain; but the corpse’ sister and some other people coming in, ben they came to see the corpse, lifts up the cloth off his face, and seeing him all in a pour of sweat, said heigh he’s a bonny corp, and a lively like colour. When he could no longer contain himself to carry on the joke, but up he got among them, a deal of people ran for it, and his wife cried out, O my dear do you ken me? Ay you base jade and whore, better than ever I did. Jumps on the floor, gets his staff and runs after Sandy, and catches him in the fields, a little from the house;—ate and drank with his sister and neighbours who came to see his corpse, and poor Sandy went home with a skin full of terror, and a sorting of sore bones, took a sore fever and died a few days after, so he got quit of his cockolder, and Leper’s mother got her load of meal.
Leper’s mother was a careful industrious wife, but as the bye-word is, ‘a working mother makes a dally daughter,’ and so it happened here, for she had two gleakit sluts of daughters, that would do nothing but lie in their bed in the morning, till, as the saying is, ‘the sun was like to burn a hole in their backsides.’ The old woman, who was bleaching some cloth, was very early at work in the mornings, and Leper’s patience being worn out with the laziness of his two sisters, he resolved to play a trick on them, for their reformation, so he goes and gets a mortcloth, and spread it on the bed above them, and sends the dead bell through the town, inviting the people next day at four o’clock afternoon to the burial of his two sisters, for they had died suddenly; this brought all the neighbouring wives in, who one after another lifted up the mortcloth, and said, with a sigh, they’ve gone to their rest, a sudden call indeed! Their aunt hearing of this sudden news, came running in all haste, and coming where the jades’ mither was at work, and was ignorant of the story, she cries out, Fye upon ye, woman, fye upon ye! What’s the matter, sister, says she, what’s the matter! I think you might let your wark stand for a’e day, when your daughters are baith lying corpse. My bairns corpse! I am certain they went to bed hale and fair last night. But I tell you, says the other, the dead bell has been thro’ warning the folks to the burial, then the mother cries out, O the villian! O the villian that he did not send me word.—So they both ran, and the mother as soon as she entered the house, flies to the bed, crying, O my bairns, my dear bairns; on which the sluts rose up in a consternation, to the great surprise of the beholders, and the great mortification of the girls, who thought shame to set their noses out of doors, and to the great diversion of the whole town.
Leper and his master went to a gentleman’s house to work, where there was a saucy house-keeper, who had more ignorance and pride than good sense and manners; she domineered over her fellow servants in a tyrannical manner. Leper resolved to mortify her pride; so he finds an ant’s nest, and takes their white eggs, grinds them to a powder, and puts them into the dish her supper sowns was to be put in. After she had taken her supper, as she was covering the table, the imnock powder began to operate, and she let a great f—: well done Margaret, said the Laird, your a— would take a cautioner. Before she got out of the chamber door she let fly another crack; then she goes to order her fellow servant to give the Laird his supper, but before she could give the necessary directions, she gave fire again, which set them all a laughing; she runs into a room herself, and there she played away her one gun battery so fast, that you would have thought she had been besieging the Havannah. The Laird and Lady came to hear the fun, they were like to split their sides at proud Maggy. So next morning she left her place, to the great satisfaction of all her fellow servants.
PART II.
Leper’s landlady became very harsh to his master, and very often abused him exceedingly sore with her tongue and hands, and always called upon him for more money, and to have all the money in her keeping; which Leper was sorry for. It so happened on a day that the tailor had got a hearty drubbing both with tongue and tongs, that he pouched his thimble and was going to make a queen of her: when she saw that, she cried out, O! will you leave a poor tender dying woman. But Leper knowing the cause of her ill nature better than his master did, advised him to take her on a fine day, like a mile out of town, and give her a walk, and he would stay at home and study a remedy for her disorder.—Away they both go; but as she was always complaining for want of health, and that she was very weak, she cried frequently out, O! ’tis a crying sin to take a woman in my condition out o’er a door. During their absence, Leper goes and searches the bed, and below the bolster gets a bottle of rare whisky, of which he takes a hearty pull, and then pisses in it to make it up; gets a halfpenny worth of snuff, and puts it in also, shakes all together, and so sets it in its place again.—Home they came, and she was exceedingly distressed as a woman could be, and cried out, it was a horrid thing to take her out of the house. The tailor seeing her so bad, thought she would have died, ran as fast as he could for a dram, but she in her hypocrisy pretended she could not take it, and called on him to help her to bed, into which he lays her; she was not well gone when she fell to her bottle, taking two or three hearty gluts, then she roars out murder, I’m poisoned, I’m poisoned. Bocking and purging began, and the neighbours were called in; she lays her blood upon poor Leper, and tells how such an honest woman brought her a’e bottle as another was done, and the murdering loon had stolen it and put in a bottle of poison instead of it. Leper took to his heels, but was pursued and carried before a justice of the peace, where he told all he had done, which made the justice laugh heartily at the joke; and the tailor’s wife was well purged from her feigned sickness, laziness, and cursed ill nature; for always when she began to curl her nose for the future, the tailor had no more to say, but Maggy mind the bottle.
Leper was working with a master-tailor in Glasgow, who hungered his men; and one morning, just when breakfast was set on the table, in comes a gentleman to try on a suit of clothes; the master being obliged to rise desired the lads to say the grace themselves. Every one refused it, and put it to his neighbour, till Leper undertook it, and said with an audible voice, that the stranger gentleman might overhear him as follows:—‘Och, hoch! we are a parcel of poor beastly bodies, and we are as beastly minded; if we do not work we get nothing to eat; yet we are always eating and always fretting; singing and half starving is like to be our fortune; scartings and scrapings are the most of our mouthfuls. We would fain thank thee for our benefactors are not worthy the acknowledging;—hey. Amen.’ The gentleman laughed till his sides were like to burst, and gave Leper half-a-crown to drink.
Leper was not long done with his apprenticeship till he set up for himself, and got a journeyman and an apprentice, was coming into very good business, and had he restrained his roguish tricks, he might have done very well. He and his lads being employed to work in a farmer’s house, where the housewife was a great miser, and not very cleanly in making meat, and sneeveled through her nose greatly when she spoke.—In the morning, when she went to make the potage, she made a fashion of washing the pot, which to appearance seemed to him to have been among the first that had been made; then sets it before the fire till she went to the well, in which time Leper looking into it, sees two great holes stapped with clouts, he takes up his goose, and holds it as high as his head, then lets it drop into the pot, which knocked out the bottom of it; presently in comes the wife with the water, and pours it into the pot, which set the fireside all in a dam, for still as she poured in, it ran out: the wife being short-sighted, or what they call sand blind, looks into the pot, holds up both her hands and cries, ‘Losh preserve me, sirs, for the grip atween the twa holes is broken.’ Says Leper, the pot was old enough; but do you not ken that tailors potage is heavier than other mens. Indeed lad I believe it, but they say ye’re a warlock; its Wednesday all the world o’er, and a waefu’ Wednesday to me indeed, my pot might ha’e served me this fifty year, a sae wad it e’en.
This sport diverted Leper and his lads through the day; and after supper, knowing he was to get some dirty bed, as the cows and the people lived all in one apartment, he choose rather to go home; and knowing the moon was to rise a little after midnight, he sat by the fire, told them many a fine story to drive away the time, and bade the wife make the bed to see how it might be: to save candle she made it in the dark, directly on the floor behind where they sat, shaking down two bottles of straw; a calf which chanced to be lying on that place, and which the wife did not notice was covered with the straw, and the bed clothes spread over it. The most of the family being in bed, the wife told them to go to bed also, but Leper knowing of the calf, said I’ll make my bed come to me, on which the wife began to pray for herself and all that was in the house; so up he gets his elwand, and gives a stroke on the bed which caused the brute to rise, and not seeing where to go, it fell a crying and turned round, which set the whole house a roaring out murder in their own tongue. The goodwife ran to the bed above the goodman, and the whole family cried out, not knowing what it was; but Leper and his two lads whipt off the blankets, and the brute ran in among the rest unperceived; then Leper lighted a candle, and all of them got out of bed, paid Leper for his work, and more if he pleased, and begged him to go away, and take the devil with him. So home he went, but never was employed by that wife any more.
Leper had a peal of the best customers both in town and country; so one time he had occasion to go to the parish of Inchinan, to make a wedding suit for a gentleman, after they were finished he desired drink money for his lads, which the gentleman refused: Leper resolved to be even with him, so he goes to the hay loft where the groom slept, and takes his stockings, breeches, and jacket, sewed them together, and stuffs them full of hay; makes a head, puts a rope about the neck, and hangs it on a tree, opposite to the lairds window; then goes to the laird and tells him that his groom had hanged himself, and that if he would open his window he would see him hanging; the laird was struck with astonishment, and knew not what to do; Leper advises him to bury him privately. The laird said he had not a servant he could trust, so begged Leper to do it. Leper refuses, till the laird promises him a load of meal, then Leper pulls out all the hay out of the groom’s clothes; goes and gets his load of meal, and sends it to Glasgow,—then goes to the groom, and says, lad thy master is wanting thee. So the lad in all haste runs to see what his master wanted, the laird no sooner saw him open the door, than he cried out, Avoid thee Satan, avoid thee Satan! The lad says, what’s the matter? Did not you hang yourself this morning? Lord forbid! said the lad. The laird says if thou be an earthly creature, take that tankard and drink: which he did; then says he to his master, Leper called me up, and said you wanted me in all haste. Ho, ho, said the laird, I find out the story now, if I had Leper I would run my sword thro’ him; but Leper before that was gone for Glasgow with his meal.