‘Thank God for that,’ says that other one. ‘See what a godsend ’tis to us.’
Now, the door’s fastened to her back yet, and she says, ‘Jack, I shall have to drop it.’
‘Drop what?’ he says.
‘I shall have to drop the door, Jack,’ she says, ‘the rope’s cutting my shoulders in two.’
So she drop the door down the hollow tree, and it went dummel-tummel-tummel down the tree, and these robbers thought ’twas the devil himself coming. They jumps up, and away they goes down the road as hard as ever they could go. The time as they run, Jack’s wife goes down the tree and picks up the bag of gold what they’d left. Being frightened as they’d had such godsends to ’em, they left all behind.
They had one brother as was deaf and dumb. Him being a very valuable[19] fellow, he thought he’d come back to see what was the matter. He come peepin’ round the old tree. Who happened to see him but Jack’s wife. And he went ‘A a a a a a’ to her. [[266]]
‘Come here,’ she says, ‘I can cure your speech.’
She made motions with her own mouth for him to put his tongue out. She drew the knife slightly from behind her as he put his tongue out, and cut half of his tongue off. Him being bleeding, he went ‘Awa wa wa wa wa,’ putting his hand to his mouth and making motions to his brothers. And when he got back to his brothers, them seeing him bleeding, they thought sure the devil was there.
I never see Jack nor his wife nor the robbers sense after they left the tree.
Matthew Wood furnished another (imperfect) Welsh-Gypsy version:—