The storm at length ceasing, purg'd Ned 'gan to think
On some revenge sweet for this damnable stink;
"For I'm damn'd," exclaimed Ned, "if these bitches shan't find,
That I'm cabbaged before, tho' I'm loosened behind."
'Twas early one morn, exercising his steed,
Ned saw an old gipsy-hag crossing the mead.
Straight he hailed her and said: "Woman, where do you hie?"
She replied: "To tell fortunes of females hard by."
Now these females Ned found were his japlaping friends,
So he thought it the season to make them amends.
Then he brib'd for the cant and the gipsy's old clothes.
Thus equipped, said Ned: "Trick for trick: damn me, here goes!"
First Molly, the cook-maid, he took by the hand,
From her greasy palm told her what fortune had plann'd.
She was soon to be married, each year have a brat.
"Indeed," cried the cooky, "how can you tell that?"
"I'll tell you the number," said Ned, "let me see
The blue vein that's low plac'd 'twixt the navel and knee."
When she pulled up her clothes, Ned exclaimed: "I declare
Your blue vein I can't see, 'tis so cover'd with hair."
Next dairy-maid Dolly, of lechery full,
Swore she was then breeding, for she'd had the bull.
To the gipsy, said Doll: "Can you, old woman, tell,
Whether bull or cow-calf makes my belly so swell?"
When he viewed her blue vein, he said, "Doll by my troth,
You must find out two fathers, for you will have both."
For the squire and the curate, when heated with ale,
Doll Dairy had milk'd in her amorous pail.
Now Kitty the housemaid, so frisky and fair,
Who smelt none the sweeter for carrotty hair,
Presenting her palm to the gipsy so shrewd,
Was candidly told that her nature was lewd.
While feeling the vein near her gold-girded nick,
Kate played the old gipsy a slippery trick,
So that Kate, who had ne'er been consider'd a whore,
Was told she'd miscarried the morning before.
Then came Peggy the prude, who no bawdy could bear,
Yet would tickle the lap-dog while combing his hair.
"Is the butler my sweetheart," said Peggy, "sincere,
And shall we be married, pray, gipsy, this year?"
Quoth the gipsy: "You'll have him for better or worse,
But you'll find that his corkscrew is not worth a curse.
So when you are wed, 'twill be o'er the town talk'd:
There goes Peggy, a bottle, most damnably cork'd."
Now Ned, thus revenged, bid the maidens good-day,
But, curious, they ask'd him a moment to stay.
"For," said Molly the cook-maid, "we all long to see,
If you've a blue vein 'twixt the navel and knee."
Ned pull'd up his clothes, sir, when, to their surprise