IMAGINATION.
Sir, the whoresons could not convey[118] clean;
For, and they could have carried by craft as I can,
In process of years each of them should be a gentleman.
Yet as for me I was never thief;
If my hands were smitten off, I can steal with my teeth;
For ye know well, there is craft in daubing:[119]
I can look in a man's face and pick his purse,
And tell new tidings that was never true, i-wis,
For my hood is all lined with lesing.[120]
FREEWILL.
Yea, but went ye never to Tyburn a pilgrimage?
IMAGINATION.
No, i-wis; nor none of my lineage,
For we be clerks all, and can our neck verse,
And with an ointment the judge's hand I can grease,
That will heal sores that be incurable.
FREEWILL.
Why, were ye never found reprovable?
IMAGINATION.
Yes, once I stall a horse in the field,
And leapt on him for to have ridden my way:
At the last a baily me met and beheld,
And bad me stand; then was I in a fray:
He asked, whither with that horse I would gone;
And then I told him it was mine own:
He said I had stolen him; and I said nay:
This is, said he, my brother's hackney.
For, and I had not excused me, without fail,
By our lady, he would have lad me straight to jail;
And then I told him the horse was like mine,
A brown bay, a long mane, and did halt behine,
Thus I told him, that such another horse I did lack;
And yet I never saw him, nor came on his back:
So I delivered him the horse again.
And when he was gone, then was I fain:
For and I had not excused me the better,
I know well I should have danced in a fetter.