th
its name. And whilst I waded on foot, my man was mounted on horseback,
like the _George_ without the Dragon. But the next morning, I arose and
left _Moffat_ behind me, and that day I travelled twenty-one miles to a
sorry village called _Blythe_, but I was blithe myself to come to any
place of harbour or succour, for since I was born, I never was so weary,
or so near being dead with extreme travel: I was foundered and
refoundered of all four, and for my better comfort, I came so late, that
I must lodge without doors all night, or else in a poor house where the
good wife lay in child-bed, her husband being from home, her own servant
maid being her nurse. A creature naturally compacted, and artificially
adorned with an incomparable homeliness: but as things were I must
either take or leave, and necessity made me enter, where we got eggs and
ale by measure and by tail. At last to bed I went, my man lying on the
floor by me, where in the night there were pigeons did very bountifully
mute in his face: the day being no sooner come, and having but fifteen
miles to _Edinburgh_, mounted upon my ten toes, and began first to
hobble, and after to amble, and so being warm, I fell to pace by
degrees; all the way passing through a fertile country for corn and
cattle: and about two of the clock in the afternoon that Wednesday,
being the thirteenth of August, and the day of _Clare_ the Virgin (the
sign being in _Virgo_) the moon four days old, the wind at west, I came
to take rest, at the wished, long expected, ancient famous city of
_Edinburgh_, which I entered like Pierce Penniless,oeee11] altogether
moneyless, but I thank God, not friendless; for being there, for the
time of my stay, I might borrow, (if any man would lend) spend if I
could get, beg if I had the impudence, and steal, if I durst adventure
the price of a hanging, but my purpose was to house my horse, and to
suffer him and my apparel to lie in durance, or lavender instead of
litter, till such time as I could meet with some valiant friend, that
would desperately disburse.

Walking thus down the street, (my body being tired with travel, and my
mind attired with moody, muddy, Moor-ditch melancholy) my contemplation
did devotely pray, that I might meet one or other to prey upon, being
willing to take any slender acquaintance of any map whatsoever, viewing,
and circumviewing every man's face I met, as if I meant to draw his
picture, but all my acquaintance was _Non est inve