19
child, says the old woman, there is not a fitter match in the whole world for my Polly, I did not think your country could afford such a clever youth as what I hear of you to be, you shall neither want gold nor silver, nor a good horse to ride upon, and when I die, you shall have my all.
O but, says Tom; Madam, that's not the thing, the stop is this: When I was in Scotland, I got a stroke from a horse's foot, on the bottom of the belly, which has quite disabled me below, that I cannot perform a husband's duty in bed. Then the old woman clapt her hands and fell a crying, O! if it had been any impediment but that, but that, but that wofu' that! which gold and silver cannot purchase, and yet the poorest people that is common beggars have plenty of it.
The old wife and her daughter sat crying and wringing their hands, and Tom stood and wept lest he should get no more money. O, said Polly, mother, I'll wed him nevertheless, I love him so dearly! No you foolish girl, said her mother, would you marry a man and die a maid? You don't know the end of your creation; it is the enjoyment of a man in bed that makes women to marry, which is a pleasure like Paradise, and if you wed this man you will live and die, and never feel it. Hoo, Hoo, says Tom, if I had got
