With that the whole treasure fell down through the earth: he should not have spoken at all. Then there came a powerful great cat, and it was the guard of the kist. Now the man had the wit to take hold of the appearance before him, and let it strive never so hard it could not contrive to escape. “I’ll hold you,” says he, “till you tell me where is the gold!”
“Dig at the far side,” says a voice. But whether it came from the cat was past the man’s wit for to know.
Well he went over and began for to dig at the far side, and he came on a big copper pot. But no gold was in it at all.
XXIV
STORY OF A CHURN
There was a woman renowned for making the best of good butter.
Now it chanced in the spring that her man had three boys hired for to work at the setting of spuds. One morning they passed through the house when the churn was a making, and not one put his hand to the work nor uttered a blessing upon it.
Herself was horrid annoyed to think they’d be that unseemly and ignorant, yet she passed no remark of the sort. Didn’t her whole morning’s work go to loss for no yield come on the churn.