When I waked I found my landlord on another bed
groaning very heavily.
When I came downstairs, I found my cripple talking with my landlady;
he was now out of his disguise, but we called him cripple still; and
the other, who put on the woman's clothes, we called Goody Thompson.
As soon as he saw me, he called me out, "Do you know," says he, "the
man of the house you are quartered in?" "No, not I," says I. "No; so I
believe, nor they you," says he; "if they did, the good wife would not
have made you a posset, and fetched a white loaf for you." "What do
you mean?" says I. "Have you seen the man?" says he. "Seen him," says
I; "yes, and heard him too; the man's sick, and groans so heavily,"
says I, "that I could not he upon the bed any longer for him." "Why,
this is the poor man," says he, "that you knocked down with your fork
yesterday, and I have had all the story out yonder at the next door."
I confess it grieved me to have been forced to treat one so roughly
who was one of our friends, but to make some amends, we contrived
to give the poor man his brother's horse; and my cripple told him
a formal story, that he believed the horse was taken away from the
fellow by some of our men, and if he knew him again, if 'twas his
friend's horse, he should have him.
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