'Why lie ye thus? Rise up, my sister dear,
Come to your meat, this peril is o'erpast.'
The other answer'd with a heavy cheer,
'I may nought eat, so sore I am aghast.
Lever[12] I had this forty dayis fast,
With water kail, and green beans and peas,
Than all your feast with this dread and disease.'
With fair 'treaty, yet gart she her arise;
To board they went, and on together sat,
But scantly had they drunken once or twice,
When in came Gib Hunter, our jolly cat,
And bade God speed. The burgess up then gat,
And to her hole she fled as fire of flint;
Bawdrons[13] the other by the back has hent.[14]
From foot to foot he cast her to and frae,
Whiles up, whiles down, as cant[15] as any kid;
Whiles would he let her run under the strae[16]
Whiles would he wink and play with her buik-hid;[17]
Thus to the silly mouse great harm he did;
Till at the last, through fair fortune and hap,
Betwixt the dresser and the wall she crap.[18]
Syne up in haste behind the panelling,
So high she clamb, that Gilbert might not get her,
And by the cluiks[19] craftily can hing,
Till he was gone, her cheer was all the better:
Syne down she lap, when there was none to let her;
Then on the burgess mouse loud could she cry,
'Farewell, sister, here I thy feast defy.
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