So he went to the closet in the corner of the room, and brought out a little tin horn. He blew a turn or two over his wife, whereat she sneezed, and then sat up as good and as sound as ever.
As for the priest and the provost and the mayor, they thought that they had never seen anything so wonderful in all of their lives before. They must and would have that tin horn if it was to be had; now, how much would Master Jacob take for it, money down?
Oh, Master Jacob did not want to part with his horn; all the same, if he had to sell it, he would just as lief that they should buy it as anybody. So they bargained and bargained, and the end of the matter was that they paid down another fifty dollars and marched off with the little tin horn, blowing away at it for dear life.
By and by they came home, and there stood the goat, nibbling at the grass in front of the house and thinking of no harm at all. “So!” says the provost, “was it you that would do nothing for us without our saying, ‘By the great horn spoon?’ Take that then!” And he fetched the goat a thwack with his heavy walking-staff so that it fell down, and lay with no more motion than a stone. “There,” says he, “that business is done; and now lend me the horn a minute, brother, till I fetch him back again.”
Well, he blew and he blew, and he blew and he blew, till he was as red in the face as a cherry, but the goat moved never so much as a single hair. Then the priest took a turn at the horn, but he had no better luck than the provost. Last of all the mayor had a try at it; but he might as well have blown the horn over a lump of dough for all the answer he had for his blowing.
Then it began to work into their heads that they had been befooled again. Phew! what a passion they were in. I can only say that I am glad that I was not in Master Jacob’s shoes. “We’ll put him in prison right away,” said they, and off they went to do as they said.
But Master Jacob saw them coming down the road, and was ready for them this time too. He took two pots and filled them with pitch, and over the top of the pitch he spread gold and silver money, so that if you had looked into the pots you would have thought that there was nothing in them but what you saw on the top. Then he took the pots off into the little woods back of the house. Now in the woods was a great deep pit, and all around the pit grew a row of bushes, so thick that nothing was to be seen of the mouth of the hole.
By and by came the priest and the mayor and the provost to Master Jacob’s house, puffing and blowing and fuming.
Rap! rap! tap! they knocked at the door, but nobody was there but Master Jacob’s wife.
Was Master Jacob at home? That was what they wanted to know, for they had a score to settle with him.