If I am to
believe his words, this wench was the smith's cousin, Joan Letham.
But thou knowest that the potter carrier ever speaks one language
with his visage and another with his tongue. Now, thou, Oliver, hast
too little wit--I mean, too much honesty--to belie the truth,
and as Dwining hinted that thou also hadst seen her--"
"I see her, Simon Glover! Will Dwining say that I saw her?"
"No, not precisely that; but he says you told him you had met the
smith thus accompanied."
"He lies, and I will pound him into a gallipot!" said Oliver
Proudfute.
"How! Did you never tell him, then, of such a meeting?"
"What an if I did?" said the bonnet maker. "Did not he swear that
he would never repeat again to living mortal what I communicated to
him? and therefore, in telling the occurrent to you, he hath made
himself a liar."
"Thou didst not meet the smith, then," said Simon, "with such a
loose baggage as fame reports?"
"Lackaday, not I; perhaps I did, perhaps I did not. Think, father
Simon--I have been a four years married man, and can you expect
me to remember the turn of a glee woman's ankle, the trip of her
toe, the lace upon her petticoat, and such toys? No, I leave that
to unmarried wags, like my gossip Henry."
"The upshot is, then," said the glover, much vexed, "you did meet
him on St. Valentine's Day walking the public streets--"
"Not so, neighbour; I met him in the most distant and dark lane
in Perth, steering full for his own house, with bag and baggage,
which, as a gallant fellow, he carried in his arms, the puppy dog
on one and the jilt herself--and to my thought she was a pretty
one--hanging upon the other.
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