THE FARRIER LASS O' PIPING PEBWORTH.
HUMFREY LEMON, meeting Bered Turnip, before the "Red Deer," doth speak as follows:
Whom have we here? Well, well, by my troth! 'tis none other than Bered Turnip, the farrier, as I do live! Come for an alms-drink, comrade. Would I had as many gold-pieces as. we have burnt alnights i' this very tavern! And is it thus we meet after all these years? It doth seem but yesterday that we supped under this very roof as juvenals. Dost thou mind thee o' the night that we gave old Gammer Lick-the-Dish a bath in his own sack, for that he served us in a foul jerkin? By'r laykin, those were days!—Well, well! to meet thee thus! Though, believe it or not, as thou wilt, I had such a pricking i' my thumbs but an hour gone that I was of a mind to roar you like any babe with a pin in his swaddling-bands. Thou wast my beau-peer i' those times; and we are kin by profession, moreover. How be Mistress Turnip and thy eight lads? Ha! ha! Dost remember how old Anthony Butter,—him who was gardener at Amhurste Castle, ye mind,—dost thou remember in what spite he held thee because o' those eight little salads o' thine? A always said a married with an eye to a's posterity; and o' my word a's been cock-eyed e'er since, for's posterity has e'er kept him on the lookout: never chick or child hath Mistress Butter given him.
Quoth he to me one day, a-setting of 's chin in 's thumb and forefinger (thou mind'st his solemn ways),—quoth he to me, "Lemon," quoth he, "would I knew why the Lord doth seem to look with a more bounteous favor on such as are farriers than on such as be followers of other trades; for methinks, what with thee, and Turnip, and Job Long-pate who bides in Dancing Marston, England will owe the chief o' her future population to blacksmiths." I quoth, to humor him, quoth I, "Belike, Master Butter," quoth I, "the Almighty hath gotten wisdom by experience, and doth purpose to put no further trust in Gardeners." Whereat he waxed so wrathful that for the sake o' my breeches I took to my heels. But, Lord! it doth seem as though a had a spite against th' very children o' others. Thou mindest my Keren?—the goujer? 'Twill- not stick i' my old pate how that thou hast not been in these parts since my Keren could 'a' walked under a blackberrv-bramble without so much as tousling her tresses. Well,
