And on she trotted again chuckling to herself on her good luck, till presently she glanced over her shoulder, “just to make sure it was there still,” as she said to herself.

“Eh, my!” she cried as soon as she saw it; “if it hasn’t gone and turned itself into a great stone this time!  Now, how could it have known that I was just terrible wanting something to hold my door open with?  Ay, if that isn’t a good change!  Hinny, it’s a fine thing to have such good luck.”

And, all in a hurry to see how the stone would look in its corner by her door, she trotted off down the hill, and stopped at the foot, beside her own little gate.

When she had unlatched it, she turned to unfasten her shawl from the stone, which this time seemed to lie unchanged and peaceably on the path beside her, There was still plenty of light, and she could see the stone quite plainly as she bent her stiff back over it, to untie the shawl end; when, all of a sudden, it seemed to give a jump and a squeal, and grew in a moment as big as a great horse; then it threw down four lanky legs, and shook out two long ears, flourished a tail, and went off kicking its feet into the and laughing like a naughty mocking boy.

The old woman stared after it, till it was fairly out of sight.

“WELL!” she said at last, “I do be the luckiest body hereabouts!  Fancy me seeing the Hedley Kow all to myself, and making so free with it too!  I can tell you, I do feel that GRAND—­”

And she went into her cottage, and sat down by the fire to think over her good luck.

Gobborn Seer

Once there was a man Gobborn Seer, and he had a son called Jack.

One day he sent him out to sell a sheep skin, and Gobborn said, “You must bring me back the skin and the value of it as well.”

So Jack started, but he could not find any who would leave him the skin and give him its price too.  So he came home discouraged.

But Gobborn Seer said, “Never mind, you must take another turn at it to-morrow.”

So he tried again, and nobody wished to buy the skin on those terms.

When he came home his father said, “You must go and try your luck to-morrow,” and the third day it seemed as if it would be the same thing over again.  And he had half a mind not to go back at all, his father would be so vexed.  As he came to a bridge, like the Creek Road one yonder, he leaned on the parapet thinking of his trouble, and that perhaps it would be foolish to run away from home, but he could not tell which to do; when he saw a girl washing her clothes on the bank below.  She looked up and said: 

“If it may be no offence asking, what is it you feel so badly about?”

“My father has given me this skin, and I am to fetch it back and the price of it beside.”

“Is that all?  Give it here, and it’s easy done.”