"Truly, neighbour Jobson, I don't know; but if I have no better ending than beginning, I wish I had ended my life at the plough tail."
No sooner were these words out of his mouth but in comes Margery, with her gossips, whom Simon wished to see, forsooth. He wished her much joy, but Margery, in a woeful fury, snatched up Jobson's oaken staff from off the table, and gave poor Simon such a clank upon the noddle which made the blood spin out, saying, "Is this your work, sirrah?" Jobson, seeing so sudden an alteration, was affrighted, not knowing how to escape.
She then turned about to the left, saying, "Thou rogue and rascal, it is you that ruins all the good women's husbands in the town; therefore you shall not go unrewarded," giving him such strokes over his back and shoulders as caused poor Jobson to lay in bed almost a fortnight.
Simple Simon all this while not having any power to run away, but stood like one half frighted out of his wits, and trembling before his bride, with his hat in one hand and the flaggon in the other, begging her that she would be patient, and he would never offend her any more.
But she gave him a frown, and bid him begone about his business, which he immediately did. So then Margery and her friendly gossips had the whole apartment to themselves, where they sat till they were all as drunk as fish-women.
Chapter II.
She drags him up into the Chimney, and hangs him a Smoke-drying.
At night, when he returned to his own home, Margery, by the help of a nap she had taken, was a little restored to her senses again; but yet, not forgetting the fault he had committed, she invented a new kind of punishment; for, having a wide chimney, wherein they used to dry bacon, she, taking him at a disadvantage, tied him hand and foot, bound him in a basket, and, by the help of a rope, drew him up to the beam in the chimney, and left him there to take his lodging the second night after his wedding, with a small, smoky fire under him, so that in the morning he almost reezed like to a red-herring. But in length of time he prevailed with his wife to show him so much pity as to let him down again.
"In love release me from this horrid smoke,
And I will never more my wife provoke;
She then did yield to let him down from thence,
And said, 'Be careful of the next offence.'"