[133] Agier for agere.
[134] Played a trick.
We cannot forgett also a note of a ministers (called Mr. Rob. Vedderburne) preaching related me by Robert Scot which happened besyde them. God will even come over the hil at the back of the kirk their, and cry wt a hy woice, Angel of the church of Maln[moon]sy, compeir; than Ile answer, Lord, behold thy servant what hes thou to say to him. Then God wil say, Wheir are the souls thou hest won by your ministery heir thir 17 years? He no wal what to answer to this, for, Sirs, I cannot promise God one of your souls: yet Ile say, behold my own Soul and my crooked Bessies (this was his daughter), and wil not this be a sad matter. Yet this was not so ill as Mr. John Elies note of a Minister was, who prayed for the success of the Kings navy both by sea and be land.
The very beggers in France may teach folk thrift. Ye sall find verie few women beggers (except some that are ether not working stockings, or very old and weak) who wants[135] their rock in their bosome, spining very busily as they walk in the streets.
[135] wants = have not.
The French, notwtstanding all their civility, are horridly and furiously addicted to the cheating of strangers. If they know a man to be a stranger or they cause him not pay the double of what they sell it to others for, theyl rather not sell it at all, which whither it comes from a malitious humour or a greedy I cannot determine, yet I'm sure they play the fooll in it, for tho they think a stranger wil readily give them all they demand, or if he mint to go away that he'el come again; yet they are whiles mistaken. Many instances we could give of it in our oune experience, al whilk we sall bury at this tyme, mentioning only one of Patrick Humes, who the vinter he was at Poictiers, chancing to get the cold, went to buy some sugar candy. Demanding what they sold the unce of it for, they demanded 18 souse, at last came to 15, vould not bat a bottle;[136] wheirupon thinking it over dear he would have none of it, but coming back to Mr. Alex'rs he sent furth his man, directing him to that same wery chop, who brought him in that for 3 souse which they would not give him under 15. That story may pass in the company of one that understandes French, of the daughter who was sitting wt her mother at the fire, wt a great sigh cried, 'O que je foutcrois. The mother spearing what sayes thou, she replied readily, O que je souperois.
[136] Bate a bodle.
On September 12 arrived heir 2 Englishmen from Orleans, who brought us large commendations from Mr. Ogilvie their, who desiring to sy the toune, I took them first up to the steeple of the place, which being both situat on a eminence and also hy of it selfe gave us a clear survey of the whole toune. We discovered a great heap of wacuities filled up wt gardens and wines, and the city seimed to us like a round hill, the top of it and all the sydes being filled wt houses. And to our wiew it seimed not to have many mo houses then what we had discovered at Orleans, for their we thought we saw heir one and their one dispersed. At Orleans we would think they lay all in a heap (lump).[137] From thence, not desiring but that they sould find the Scots as civil and obligding as any, we was at the paines to take them first to the church of Nostre Dame la grande, on the wall of which that regardes the place standes the statue of the Empereur Constantine, a cheval, wt a sword in his hand. From thence to Ste. Radegondes, wheir we showed them hir tombeau; from that to St. Croix, wheir we showed them the empressa of Christs foot, of which we spake already; and from that to St. Peters, which we looked all on as a very large church, being 50 paces broad.
[137] Interlined.
In the afternoon we went to the Church of St. Hilaire, wheir at a distance we discovered the Scots walk; so called because when the Englishes ware beseiging the toune a Regiment of Scotsmen who ware aiding the French got that syde of the toune to garde and defend, who on some onset behaving themselfes gallantly the Captain got that great plot of ground which goes now under that name gifted him by the toune, who after mortified to a nunnery neir hand, who at present are in possession of it. The church we fand to smell every way of antiquity.