Cicily Summers, whose nose was then as fair as the midnight sun, which shined as bright as Baconthine, was beloved of young Tom Tram; and a sad story to tell, he grew not worth the bread he ate, through pining away for her love. Tom was loath to speak but still whistled. At last, when Cicily made no answer, he burst out in thus:--"O Cicily Summers, if I Tom Tram, son of Mother Winter, and thou Cicily Summers be joined together what a quarter shall we keep, as big as three half years; besides Cicily Summers when thou scoldest, then Winter shall presently cool thy temper; and when we walk on the street they'll say yonder goes Summer and Winter; and our children, we shall call a generation of almanacks. So they went to the parson and were married; but they fell out so extremely that they scolded all the summer season; and Tom drank good ale, and told old tales all the winter time, and so they could never but thrive all the year through. Tom lived by good ale, and his wife by eating oat-meal; and when Tom went to be drunk in the morning, she put oat-meal in the ale, and made caudle with mustard instead of eggs, which bit Tom so by the nose, that it would run water; but the next day he would be drunk again." TOM TRAM'S MERRY TALES. TALE I. _Of a Scholar and a Tapster on a Winter Night._ The tapster said, "Sir, will you go to bed." "No," quoth the scholar, "There are thieves abroad, and would not willingly be caught napping." 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.