So she up and told him, and he said, “Then I’m a ruined man, for that money was to pay our rent with.  The only thing we can do is to roam the world over till we find the bag of groats.”  Then Jan took the house-door off its hinges, “That’s all we shall have to lie on,” he said.  So Jan put the door on his back, and they both set out to look for Hereafterthis.  Many a long day they went, and in the night Jan used to put the door on the branches of a tree, and they would sleep on it.  One night they came to a big hill, and there was a high tree at the foot.  So Jan put the door up in it, and they got up in the tree and went to sleep.  By-and-by Jan’s wife heard a noise, and she looked to see what it was.  It was an opening of a door in the side of the hill.  Out came two gentlemen with a long table, and behind them fine ladies and gentlemen, each carrying a bag, and one of them was Hereafterthis with the bag of groats.  They sat round the table, and began to drink and talk and count up all the money in the bags.  So then Jan’s wife woke him up, and asked what they should do.

“Now’s our time,” said Jan, and he pushed the door off the branches, and it fell right in the very middle of the table, and frightened the robbers so that they all ran away.  Then Jan and his wife got down from the tree, took as many money-bags as they could carry on the door, and went straight home.  And Jan bought his wife more cows, and more pigs, and they lived happy ever after.

The Golden Ball

There were two lasses, daughters of one mother, and as they came from the fair, they saw a right bonny young man stand at the house-door before them.  They never saw such a bonny man before.  He had gold on his cap, gold on his finger, gold on his neck, a red gold watch-chain—­eh! but he had brass.  He had a golden ball in each hand.  He gave a ball to each lass, and she was to keep it, and if she lost it, she was to be hanged.  One of the lasses, ’t was the youngest, lost her ball.  I’ll tell thee how.  She was by a park-paling, and she was tossing her ball, and it went up, and up, and up, till it went fair over the paling; and when she climbed up to look, the ball ran along the green grass, and it went right forward to the door of the house, and the ball went in and she saw it no more.

So she was taken away to be hanged by the neck till she was dead because she’d lost her ball.

But she had a sweetheart, and he said he would go and get the ball.  So he went to the park-gate, but ’t was shut; so he climbed the hedge, and when he got to the top of the hedge, an old woman rose up out of the dyke before him, and said, if he wanted to get the ball, he must sleep three nights in the house.  He said he would.

Then he went into the house, and looked for the ball, but could not find it.  Night came on and he heard bogles move in the courtyard; so he looked out o’ the window, and the yard was full of them.