day before: down he comes, and throws the calf on the ground, gets thro’ the hedge in all haste, thinking he had no more to do but to take it up; but as he came in at one part of the hedge, Tom jumped out at another, and gets the calf on his back; then goes over the hedge on the other side, and thro’ the fields he came safely home, with the calf on his back, while the poor butcher spent his time and labour in vain, running from hedge to hedge, and hole to hole, seeking the calf. So the butcher returning to his horse again, and finding his other calf gone, he concluded that it was done by some invisible spirit, about that spot of ground; and so went home lamenting the loss of his calf. When Tom got home he washed the white face off the stolen calf, and his master sent the butcher word to come and buy another calf, which he accordingly did in a few days after, and Tom sold him the same calf a third time, and then told him the whole affair as it was acted, giving him his money again. So the butcher got fun for his trouble. PART V. There was an old rich blind woman, who lived hard by, that had a young girl, her only daughter, who fell deep in love with Tom, and he fell as deep in love with the money, but not with the maid. The old woman gave Tom many presents, and mounted him like a gentleman; but he used every method to put off the marriage, pretended he still wanted something, which the old woman gave the money to purchase for him, until he had got about thirty pounds of her money and then she would delay the marriage no longer. Tom then took the old woman and girl aside, and made the following apology: Madam, said he, I am very willing to wed with my dear Polly, for she appears as an angel in my eyes, but I am sorry, very sorry to acquaint you, that I am not a fit match for her. What, child, says the old woman, there is not a fitter match in the whole world for my Polly, I did not think your country could afford such a clever youth as what I hear of you to be, you shall neither want gold nor silver, nor a good horse to ride upon, and when I die, you shall have my all. O but, says Tom; Madam, that’s not the thing, the stop is this: When I was in Scotland, I got a stroke from a horse’s foot, on the bottom of the belly, which has quite disabled me below, that I cannot perform a husband’s duty in bed. Then the old woman clapt her hands and fell a crying, O! if it had been any impediment but that, but that, but that wofu’ that! which gold and silver cannot purchase, and yet the poorest people that is common beggars have plenty of it.