Then he went to bed.

Now sure enough, in the dead of the night, the robbers sent one man back to the house to look after their money.  But before long he came back in a great fright and told them a fearsome tale!

“I went back to the house,” said he, “and went in and tried to sit down in the rocking-chair, and there was an old woman knitting there, and she—­oh my!—­stuck her knitting-needles into me.”

(That was the cat, you know.)

“Then I went to the table to look after the money, but there was a shoemaker under the table, and my! how he stuck his awl into me.”

(That was the dog, you know.)

“So I started to go upstairs, but there was a man up there threshing, and goody! how he knocked me down with his flail!”

(That was the goat, you know.)

“Then I started to go down to the cellar, but—­oh dear me!—­there was a man down there chopping wood, and he knocked me up and he knocked me down just terrible with his axe.”

(That was the bull, you know.)

“But I shouldn’t have minded all that if it hadn’t been for an awful little fellow on the top of the house by the kitchen chimney, who kept a-hollering and hollering, ’Cook him in a stew!  Cook him in a stew!  Cook him in a stew!’”

(And that, of course, was the cock-a-doodle-doo.)

Then the robbers agreed that they would rather lose their gold than meet with such a fate; so they made off, and Jack next morning went gaily home with his booty.  And each of the animals carried a portion of it.  The cat hung a bag on its tail (a cat when it walks always carries its tail stiff), the dog on his collar, the goat and the bull on their horns, but Jack made the rooster carry a golden guinea in its beak to prevent it from calling all the time: 

  “Cock-a-doodle-doo,
   Cook him in a stew!”

THE BOGEY-BEAST

There was once a woman who was very, very cheerful, though she had little to make her so; for she was old, and poor, and lonely.  She lived in a little bit of a cottage and earned a scant living by running errands for her neighbours, getting a bite here, a sup there, as reward for her services.  So she made shift to get on, and always looked as spry and cheery as if she had not a want in the world.

Now one summer evening, as she was trotting, full of smiles as ever, along the high road to her hovel, what should she see but a big black pot lying in the ditch!

“Goodness me!” she cried, “that would be just the very thing for me if I only had something to put in it!  But I haven’t!  Now who could have left it in the ditch?”

And she looked about her expecting the owner would not be far off; but she could see nobody.

“Maybe there is a hole in it,” she went on, “and that’s why it has been cast away.  But it would do fine to put a flower in for my window; so I’ll just take it home with me.”