On the Saturday night thereafter, I was like to be badly off for quarters, I travelled until many people were going to bed; but at last I came to a farmer’s house asked what they would buy, naming twenty fine things which I never had, and then asked for quarters, which they very freely granted, thinking I was some genteel packman, with a rich pack; and being weary with travel could take but little supper; being permitted to lie in the spence beside the goodman’s bed, the goodwife being very hard of hearing, she thought that every body was so, for when she went to bed, she cries out A how hearie goodman, is na yon a braw moderate chapman we hae here the night, he took just seven soups o’ our sowens, and that fill’d him fu’; a’ dear Andrew man, turn ye about an’ tak my cauld a--se in your warm lunchoch. On the morrow I went to the kirk, with the goodman, and I missed him about the door, went into the middle of the kirk, but could see no empty seats but one big firm, where none sat but one woman by herself, and so I set myself down beside her, not knowing where I was, until sermon was over, when the minister began to rebuke her for using her Merry-bit against law or license; and then she began to whinge and yowl like a dog, which made me run out cursing, before the minister had given the blessing. PART III. I travelled then west by Falkirk, by the foot of the great hills; and one night after I had got lodging in a farmer’s house, there happened a contest between the goodman and his mother, he being a young man unmarried, as I understood, and formerly their sowens had been too thin; so the goodman, being a sworn birly-man of that barony, came to survey the sowens before they went on the fire, and actually swore they were o’er thin; and she swore by her conscience they would be thick enough, if ill hands and ill een bade awa frae them. A sweet be here, mither, said he, do you think that I’m a witch? Witch here, or witch there, said the wife, swearing by her saul, and that was nae banning, she said, they’ll be gude substantial meat;--a what say you chapman? Indeed, goodwife, said I, sowens are but saft meat at the best, but, if you make them thick enough, and put a good lump of butter in them, they’ll do very well for a supper. I trow sae lad, said she, ye ha’e some sense: so the old woman put on the pot with her sowens, and went to milk the cows, leaving me to steer; the goodman, her son, as soon as she went out, took a great cogful of water, and put it into the pot amongst the sowens, and then went out of the house and left me alone: I considering what sort of a pish-the-bed supper I was to get if I staid there, thought it fit to set out, but takes up a pitcher of water, and fills up the pot until it was running over, and then takes up my pack, and comes about a mile farther that night, leaving the honest woman and her son to sup their watery witched sowens at their own pleasure.