Part 19 (1/2)

So the tapster left him, and being gone, in came a spirit into the chamber, with his head under his arm so that he durst not stir, but cried out, ”Help! help! fire! thieves! thieves!” ”Oh,” quoth he, ”the devil was here and spoke to me with his head under his arm; but now I will go to bed, and if he comes again I will send him to the tapster, to help him to make false reckonings. It being a cold night,” quoth he, ”I will first put fire to toe, that is, I will warm my toes by the fire, then I'll go to bed.” And so he did, and a great reckoning put the scholar out of his jest saying, ”That was in earnest made too large a reckoning,” he being but poor Sir John, of Oxford.

TALE II.

Down in the west country a certain conceited fellow had a great nose; so a country man by him with a sack of corn, jostled him, saying, ”Your nose stands in my way,” whereupon the other fellow with the great nose, took his nose in his hand, and held it to the other side, saying, ”A pox on thee, go and be hanged.”

TALE III.

Once there was a company of gypsies that came to a country fellow on the highway, and would needs tell Tom his fortune. Amongst other things, they bade him a.s.sure himself that his worst misfortunes were past, and that he would not be troubled with crosses as he had been. So coming home, and having sold the cow at the market, he looked into his purse for the money, thinking to have told it to his wife; but he found not so much as one cross in his purse; whereupon he remembered the words of the gypsies, and said that the gypsies had said true that he should not be troubled with crosses, and that they had picked his pocket, and left not a penny in his purse. Whereupon his wife basted and cudgelled him so soundly, that he began to perceive that a man that had a cursed wife should never be without a cross, though he had never a penny in his purse; and because it was winter-time, he sat a while by the fireside, and after went to bed supperless and penniless.

TALE IV.

A farmer's wife in the west had three pigs, which she loved exceedingly well, and fed them with good b.u.t.ter milk and whey; but they would come running into the house and dirtied the rooms. Whereupon she resolved to sell them at the market, because they were better fed than taught, but afterwards they were stolen away from her; whereupon she supposed they were driven up to London to learn manners; ”But,” said she, ”they were too old to learn to turn the spit in Bartholemew fair,” and therefore believed some butchers had stolen them away.

Her c.o.c.k had a piece of cloth sewn about him, and was left upon the porch, but afterwards stolen; whereupon she said, that her c.o.c.k was turned scholar in a black gown, and so she went to Oxford to a conjurer, to know what was become of her pigs and her c.o.c.k. The scholar smiled, and told her the three pigs were blown home, and the c.o.c.k was made a bachelor of arts in one of the colleges. ”I thought so,” said the woman, ”for sure bachelors of arts are very c.o.xcombs.”

A

YORK DIALOGUE

BETWEEN

NED AND HARRY:

OR

Ned giving Harry an Account of his Courts.h.i.+p and Marriage State.

_Ned._--Honest Harry, I am glad to see you. You're welcome to York.

You're a great stranger. When came you to town?

_Harry._--I came to your town last night, Ned, and am glad to see you. I inquired after you of my landlord, and he told me you was well, and had been married two or three years. I wish you much happiness; but how d'ye like matrimony?

_Ned._--In good faith, Harry, scrubbing his shoulders, but so, so; however, I will not discourage you.

_Harry._--But don't you remember, Ned, that you and I made an agreement that which of us two was married first, should tell one another of the way of courts.h.i.+p, and how he liked it and a married state.

_Ned._--'Tis true we did so, Harry, but now I have not time to tell you, for it will take me more than two or three hours to give you a full account of both parts.

_Harry._--What! are you in haste then, Ned? 'Tis a great while since I have seen you, and shan't we have one mug together?

_Ned._--Faith, Harry, I'm loath to deny you; but if I go with you, I must send home to my wife, and let her know where I am.

_Harry._--So you may Ned, and tell her you are with an old friend that would be glad to see her.

_Ned._--Not a word of that, Harry, for if I go with you and stay any time, we shall have her company without sending for her.