The English Rogue: Continued in the Life of Meriton Latroon, and Other Extravagants: The Second PartHead, Richard
General
The English Rogue: Continued in the Life of Meriton Latroon, and Other Extravagants: The Second Part
Head, Richard
Rogues and vagabonds -- England -- Fiction
the going out of her bed would not cure her now, she carried her
distemper along with her, so that knowing not how to ease her self, she
bellowed like a Bull, and made such a quarter, that the whole house was
disturbed with her bellowing. All night she continued thus; in the
morning I began to play upon her, told her that the scratching of her
arse signified we should have butter cheap, and that how ever things
went she would be sure to _Rub_ through with them, but had I not took my
heels, she had so rubbed my ears for it, as would have turned my mirth
into mourning. That day was very fatal to me, and my running from the
maid in the morning, prognosticated I should run from my Master before
night. It so happened that we had some work to do that day at a tavern
in _Thames-street_, the back-side whereof adjoyned to the _Thames_,
which the Vintner would have beautified next to the water-side; now for
to make him a scaffold to work on, he put the ends of two long sticks
out at the window, laying a board over them for him to stand on the
out-side; and on the in-side fastned the end of the one with a cord, but
wanting a cord for the other, he bid me to sit on it, thereby to keep it
from kicking up, thus was all things ordered, my Master gotten up upon
his scaffold, which was just over the water, and I sitting on the end of
the stick; he fell a singing as he was accustomed to do at his work, and
I fell a nodding, being lulled a sleep with his singing; in my sleep I
dreamt that my old Master the Cook was alive again, that I lived with
him, and that our House was full of Guests; by and by some Gentlemen
knocked in the next room, I hearing them, imagined that I was called,
and thereupon cryed out, _Anon, Anon, I come I come Sir_, and thereupon
fell a running, when presently up flew the stick, and down fell my
Master, crying all the way he fell _help, help, I shall be drown’d_, the
noise he made waked me out of my sleep, when looking forth of the
window, I saw my Master floating like a shitle-cock upon the water. I
seeing what had happened, thought more upon saving my self than him,
imagining if he were drowned, that I should be hanged, and therefore
that I might not die the death of a dog, to prevent it, I run away,
leaving my Master to shift for himself, whom though yet I loved well,
and would not have parted from him but for this accident.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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