Shall I go any
further? Well, I will say yet a little more, and somewhat by mine own
experience.
At Michaelmas time poor men must make money of their grain, that they
may pay their rents. So long then as the poor man hath to sell, rich
men bring out none, but rather buy up that which the poor bring, under
pretence of seed corn or alteration of grain, although they bring none
of their own, because one wheat often sown without change of seed will
soon decay and be converted into darnel. For this cause therefore they
must needs buy in the markets, though they be twenty miles off, and
where they be not known, promising there, if they happen to be espied
(which, God wot, is very seldom), to send so much to their next
market, to be performed I wot not when.
If this shift serve not (neither doth the fox use always one track for
fear of a snare), they will compound with some one of the town where
the market is holden, who for a pot of "huffcap" or "merry-go-down,"
will not let to buy it for them, and that in his own name. Or else
they wage one poor man or other to become a bodger, and thereto get
him a licence upon some forged surmise, which being done, they will
feed him with money to buy for them till he hath filled their lofts,
and then, if he can do any good for himself, so it is; if not, they
will give him somewhat for his pains at this time, and reserve him for
another year.
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