On the next morning she sent him to the water to wash some cow’s puddings and turn them on a spindle, showing him how he was to do or he went away. John goes to the water very willingly, and as he turned and washed them, he laid them down behind him, where one of his father-in-law’s big dogs stood, and ate them up as fast as he laid them down, till all was gone but the very last ane, which he carried hame in his hand, crying like a child, and underwent a severe tost of the old plaister before any mercy was shown. MISFORTUNE VI. His father-in-law, next day, sent him away to bring home a fat calf he had bought in the country, and tied up the money in a napkin, which he carried in his hand for fear he should lose it. Being very weighty, as it was all in half-pence, and as he was going alongst a bridge, he meets a man running after a horse, who cries to John to stop the horse; John meets him on the top of the bridge, and when he would not be stopped for him, he knocks the horse on the face with the napkin and the money, so the napkin rave, and most of the half-pence flew over the bridge in the water, which made poor John go home crying very bitterly for his loss, and dread of the old plaister, which he got very sickerly. MISFORTUNE VII. On the next morning, she sent him again to the bridge, to see if he could find any of it in the water, and there he found some ducks swimming, and ducking down with their heads below the water, as he thought, gathering up his money, he kills one of them, and rips her up, but found none of it in her guts or gabbie; then says he, they have been but looking for it, I’ll go do as they did, strips off his clothes and leaves them on the bridge, goes in a ducking, in which time, a ragman came past, and took away all his clothes. So he went home naked to get a bath of the old plaister. MISFORTUNE VIII. The next morning, she sent him to a farm-house for a pigful of buttermilk, and as he was returning through the fields, the farmer’s bull and another bull were fighting; the farmer’s bull being like to loss, John runs in behind him, and sets his head to the bull’s tail, on purpose to help him to push against the other; but the poor bull thought John was some other bull attacking him behind, fled aside, and the other bull came full drive upon John, pushed him down, broke the pig, and spilt the milk. So John went home to get his auld plaister, which began to be a usual diet to him, and so he regarded it the less. MISFORTUNE IX.