A Strange and Wonderful
RELATION
OF THE
OLD WOMAN
WHO WAS DROWNED AT
RATCLIFFE HIGHWAY
A Fortnight ago.
TO WHICH IS ADDED
The Old Woman's Dream,
A little after her Death.
Part the First.
Printed and Sold in London.
This book is somewhat of a curiosity; it is the only one of its kind in the whole series of Chap-books, and has been several times reprinted in the country. It is illustrated, in every edition, with engravings which have no connection with the text, which, however, would be an impossible task, as the following page or so of the commencement will show. The frontispiece has nothing whatever to do with the book, but it is curious and valuable, as giving a representation of the ducking-stool. There are two parts, but they both consist of such rodomontade as the following:—
"It was the last Monday Morning about four o'clock in the afternoon before sun rising, going over Highgate Hill I asked him if the Old Woman was dead that was drowned at Ratcliffe Highway a few nights ago. He told me he could not tell, but if I went a little farther I should meet with two young men on horseback, riding under a mare, in a blue red jerkin and a pair of white freestone breeches, and they would give intelligence. So when I came up with the women they thought I was a Hector that was come to rob them and therefore ran to me, but I most furiously pursued before them, so that one of them for meer madness, seeing him dead, drew out his sword and directly killed him. The horse for vexation seeing himself dead ran away as fast as he could, leaving them to go on foot upon another horse's back forty miles—Friend, said I, I mean you no good, but pray inform me if the Old woman be dead yet that was drowned at Ratcliff Highway a fortnight ago? and they told me they could not tell; but if I went a little farther I should meet with two women driving an empty cartful of apples, and a Mill Stone in the midst, and they would give me particular intelligence—But when I came up with them they would not satisfy me neither; but told me if I went down to the waterside, there lived one Sir John Vang, and he would give me true intelligence. So going by the waterside, I hooped and hallowed, but I could make nobody see. At last I heard Six Country Lads and Lasses, who were all fast asleep playing at nine pins under a hay cock, piled up of pease straw in the midst of the Thames, and eating of a roasted bran pudding freezing hot," etc., etc.