_He serveth a Plaisterer, sheweth some cheats in that Trade, he is even
with the Maid of the House for her sloath, and punishing him; giveth
his Master a fall from the Scaffold, and runneth away from him into
the Country._
I was now grown a good sturdy Lad, and it being then the spring of the
year, I was entertained into a Plaisterers service, I imagined with my
self that there could be no knavery in this trade, but after I had bin
there a while, I found there was a great deal of difference in our
labour when we work't by the day, and when we wrought by the great; in
the one I could not be too quick for my Master, in the other he cared
not how slow; dispatching that in six days in the one, which we would
hardly do in ten days in the other; in the one we minded only our work,
in the other we used to lengthen out the time with discourses of
wenches, foot-ball playing and such like; for so we brought the day to
an end, we cared not so much for our work going forward, seeing our
wages ran parallel with the day, and when that was done, we counted our
money due, whether we earned it or no. In this service I lived like a
Prince to my hearts content, for my Master would not only wink at any
Rogueries that I committed, but also countenance me in the doing of
them. When we wrought upon scaffolds in the street it was a great
pleasure to me to throw the morter upon the heads of young wenches as
they passed by; and at other times with our whiting to bespatter
Gentlemens Cloaks as they walked under us, that they looked as if the
Crow had shit upon them. My Master kept a maid who was none of those
huswifes that use to disturb other peoples sleeps by their early rising;
she would endure three calls in a morning, and when she began to stirre,
she would groan sadly, stretching out her arms and legs, and giving a
two or three ha’s to get upon her breech, where she would sit in her bed
half an hour lacing of her boddice, and throwing of her coats over her
head, so that we were forced to put up the victuals we carried with us
our selves. My Master asked me if I could not invent a way to punish her
sloath? I told him I would do my best endeavor; so that day I got some
Horse-hair and shred it fit for my purpose, telling my Master what I
would do with it; at night when he came home, he sent the maid for two
pots of Ale, when she was gone for it, I took my shred hair, and strowed
the same in her bed betwixt the sheets, which plagued her worse then if
she had had half a peck of six footed vermine to her bedfellows; a good
while she endured it, being exceeding loath to be at the pains of
putting on her Cloaths, for she always accounted the trouble of dressing
and undressing her self to be a great plague inflicted on mortals to
disturb them of their ease, accounting the Birds in a far happier
condition than men, who go to bed and rise with their doublet and
breeches on, and was resolved if she changed her Religion to have turned
_Adamite_, that she might have saved that labour of dressing her self;
but the hair tormented her so abominably, that _nolens volens_ she was
forced to rise, and sit up until the morning, when looking in the sheets
she found the cause of her disquietness; the cunning Jade made no speech
of it at all, but was as pleasant that morning as if she had ailed
nothing all night; which made me to mistrust my art, and think I had not
done my business right. All that day she was busied with her thoughts in
contriving mischief against me, the result whereof was, that she took
the sheets from off her bed and laid them on mine, whereby she paid me
home in my own coyn, and whereof I could not justly complain, seeing
what was sause for a Goose was sauce for a Gander. I had work’d very
hard that day, and would willingly have taken some rest at night, but it
was in vain to think of it, I might almost have lain as well upon pins
and needles as on what I did, I then thought upon the story which is
usually told Boys when they first come to be Prentices concerning their
enroling, that they must be rol’d in a Barrel drove full of nails, with
the points sticking up, and thought this punishment to be little
inferior to that; flesh and blood could not endure it, wherefore I got
up and uncased my bed of the sheets, creeping in betwixt the blanckets
where I lay all night. In the morning the maid asked me how I slept that
night? I told her very well, for my skin was armor of proof against the
biting of fleas, or any other disturbance whatsoever, but though I
carried fair weather in my countenance, my heart boyled in revenge
against her, wherefore that day I went and bought two penny-worth of
Cow-itch, which is a drug of that nature, that where it touches the
flesh, it will make them so scrub seventeen times worse than if they
were plagued with the itch, with this I anointed her sheets in the same
manner as I strowed them with horse-hair before; but if the hair netled,
this fleyed, she had needed to have had _Briarius_ hundred hands to have
scratcht her self at once, for when she came to be a little hot in her
bed, she fared like a mad woman; the more she scratcht the more it
itcht, so that by what she seek't to allay her paine, she encreas’d it:
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.
I made great haste in going, and yet knew not whither to go; East, West,
North, or South, all was indifferent to me, for it is impossible he can
be out of his way to whom all ways are alike. _London_ though large and
populous I judged no Coverture for me, I wanting those two great helps
of concealment, mony and friends. The Country therefore I pitcht upon,
invited thereto the more, it being then the merry month of _May_, the
pleasantest time of all the year, the earth having then put on her
richest apparel, the meddow cloathed in green, the fields beautified
with flowers, and the woods adorned with Violets, Cowslips, and
Primroses; the winged Choristers of the Forrest, warbled forth their
ditties very harmoniously, the Lambs friskt and leapt, dancing lavalto’s
on the flowry pastures, and the murmuring stream made a noyse like to a
Chime of Bells, running through their winding _Meanders_. As I walked
thus in the Countrey, encircled with pleasures, and every where having
my eyes satiated with variety of pleasing objects, I thought my self to
be in _Paradise_, and imagined no pleasure in the world comparable to
that of a Country life; Happy, yea thrice happy (thought I) is he who
not playing with his wings in the golden flames of the Court, nor
setting his foot in the busie throngs of the City, nor running up and
down in the intricate mazes of the Law, can be content in the winter to
sit by a Country fire, and in the Summer to lay his head on the green
pillows of the earth. The Country Cottage is neither batter’d down by
the Canon in time of War, nor pester’d with clamorous Suits in time of
peace. The fall of _Cedars_ that tumble from the tops of Kingdoms, the
ruine of _great Houses_, that bury Families in their overthrow, and the
ways of _shipwracks_, that beget even shreiks in the heart of Cities,
never send their terrors thither: that place stands as safe from the
shock of such violent storms, as the _Bay-tree_ does from lightening;
their sleeps are secure from such dangers, and their wakings as pleasant
as golden dreams. In the homely village art thou more safe, than in a
fortified Castle; the stings of _Envy_, nor the bullets of _Treason_ are
never shot through those thin walls: sound healths are drunk out of the
wholesome wooden dish, when the Cup of Gold boyles over with Poyson.
Hast thou a desire to rule? get up to the mountains, and thou shalt see
the greatest trees stand trembling before thee, to do thee _Reverence_,
those mayest thou call thy _Nobles_. Thou shalt have rancks of oak on
each side of thee, which thou maist call thy Guard, thou shalt see
_Willows_ bending at every blast; whom thou maist call thy flatterers:
thou shalt see valleys humbled at thy feet; whom thou maist term thy
slaves. Wouldest thou behold battels? step into the fields, there shalt
thou see excellent combats between the standing Corn and the windes. Art
thou a tyrant? and delightest in the fall of _great ones_? muster then
thy Harvesters together, and down with those proud Summer Lords when
they are at highest. Wouldest thou have _Subsidies_ paid thee? the
_Plough_ sends thee in Corn, the _Meadow_ gives thee her pasture, the
Trees pay thee custome with their fruit, the _Ox_ bestows upon thee his
labor, the _Sheep_ his wooll, the _Cow_ her milk, the _Fowles_ their
Feathers, &c. Doest thou call for _Musick_? no Prince in the world keeps
more skilful musitians, the Birds are thy Consort, and the winde
instruments they play upon yield ten thousand tunes.
Thus went I on contemplating the Summers pride and the Earths bravery,
and from them both concluded the great felicity of a Country life, as if
the one would never fade, and the other always endure; resolving in my
thoughts never to see _London_ again, being ravished with the delights
of the verdant fields, and enamour’d on the beauties of the Spring,
accounting none truly happy, but he who enjoyed the felicities of a
Country life; Is he addicted to study, Heaven is the Library; the Sun,
Moon and Stars his books to teach him _Astronomy_, that great volume his
_Ephemerides_ out of which he may Calculate predictions of times to
follow; yea in the very clouds are written lessons of _Divinity_ for him
to instruct him in wisdome, the turning over their leaves, teach him the
variation of seasons, & how to dispose his business for all weathers,
who therefore would not consume his youth in such delightfull studies,
that have power in them to keep off old age longer than it would? or
when old age doth come, is able to give it the livelyhood and vigour of
youth? who would not rather sit at the foot of a hill, tending a flock
of sheep, than at the helm of Authority, controuling the stubborn and
unruly multitude? Better it is in the solitary woods and in the wilde
fields, to be a man among _Beasts_, than in the midst of a peopled City,
to be a _Beast_ amongst men.
As I was thus stricken into admiration of these _beauties_, and wholy
taken up in contemplations of the felicities of an retired life, being
already in my thoughts an absolute Country-man, I being now some miles
distant from the _Metropolitan_ City of our fruitful _Albion_, on a
sudden the welkin began to rore, and send forth terrible peales of
thunder, the serene sky was over-shadowed, and _Ph[oe]bus_ hid his head
behind a cloud, the Heavens began first to weep small tears, afterwards
to pour them in full Rivolets upon the thirsty earth, I had then no
Pent-house to walk under to keep me from the rain, nor was there a red
lattice at every nook and corner (as at _London_) to give me
entertainment; the spreading boughs of the sturdy oak were too feeble to
defend me from being wet; I looked like a drench't Mouse, having never a
dry thread on me; what to do I knew not, money I had but little, friends
none, a stranger both to the place and people, unexperienced in the
world, as in the way where I travelled; the consideration of those
things made me add more moysture to the earth by the salt tears that
trickled from my eyes; to stand still I thought was in vain, so forwards
I went wet without, and dry within, (sorrow they say causeth drowth) at
length I spyed by a corner of a wood a little thatcht Cottage, thither I
went, and found by an old rotten stick that darted out of it, in
imitation of a Sign-post, that it was an Ale-house; this something
revived my drooping spirits, so in I went, to dry my out-side and wet my
in-side, where I found a good fire, and store of company of both sexes
merrily trouling the bowl about, singing of Catches, and smoaking
Tobacco; no sooner was I entered, but one of them drank to me a full
cup, so down I sat amongst them, being all alike free Citizens of the
wide world, the strong Ale soon washed away all sorrow from my heart,
and now that I had a warm fire to sit by, and a house over my head, I
bid a fig for all foul weather.
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