me where you herd, and I'll tell you what you are'; and 'birds of a
feather flock together'; and 'many a good bit is lost between the lip
and the dish.' Go, you fool; if you had a hankering after women, did not
you know that I had always a good stock of that commodity by me, and
that I live by that trade? I breed them up to hand, and fit them for
that business, and then I have them ready at my beck. What occasion have
you to be drawn away by one scoundrel to-day, and by another rascal
to-morrow; picking up a dirty drab here, and a pickled jade there, who
fleece you to keep another? I vow and swear you had saved many a crown
if you had applied yourself to me, for I am not over fond of money. By
my father's soul, and as I hope for mercy, I would not have asked you
now for what is due for lodging, but that I want it for some private
uses, and to buy some little candles and herbs." She had her gallipots,
though she was neither surgeon or apothecary, and if anybody greased her
she anointed herself, and flew out with the smoke.[20]
I perceived that all her discourse and long speech ended in a dun; for
though that was her text, she did not begin with it as others do, but
made it her conclusion; when I found that I was not at all to seek for
the occasion of her loving visit, which was the first she made me whilst
I lodged in her house, excepting only one day, when she came to answer
for herself, because she heard I had been told some story about her
witchcraft, and that when the officers came to seize her, she had cast
such a mist before their eyes, that they could neither find the house
nor the street. She came then to tell me it was all a mistake, for they
meant another of her name; and no wonder, for there were more of the
name and profession. I paid her down the money, and as I was telling it
out, ill fortune, which always attends me, and the devil, who never
forgets to plague me, so ordered it, that the officers came to seize
her for a scandalous liver, and had information that her gallant was in
the house. They came directly into my room, and seeing me in bed and her
by me, they laid hold of us both, gave me half a score good blows, and
dragged me out of bed. Two others held her fast, saluting her with the
titles of bawd and witch. Who would have thought it of a woman that
lived as I have said? The noise the constables made, and my cries, gave
the alarm to her gallant, who was a fruiterer, and lay in the next room
within. He set off a-running. They observing it, and being informed by
another lodger in the house that I was not the man, scoured after, and
laid hold of him, leaving me well beaten and my hair torn off; yet for
all I had endured, I could not forbear laughing to hear how the dogs
complimented the old woman. One cried, "How gracefully you will look in
a cart, mother; by my troth, it will be a great satisfaction to me to
see a thousand or two of rotten oranges and turnip tops fly after you."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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