“Brother Pike! Brother Pike! Here are folks would like to cross the wide river.”
Then up came a great river pike, and on his back he took Peterkin and the Little Grey Hare and the three barrels of pitch and the sack of barley-corn and the pot of good tallow, and away he swam till he had brought them from this side to that.
(Now that was a great load for a river pike to carry; but as Time’s Clock told the story to me I tell it to you.)
Then the Little Grey Hare went on and on again until it came to a high hill, and on the top of the high hill was a great house; that was where the giant lived.
Then Peterkin took the soft pitch and made a wide pathway of it. After that he smeared his feet all over with the tallow, so that he stuck to the soft pitch no more than water sticks to a cabbage leaf. Then he shouldered his bag of barley-corn and went up to the giant’s castle, and hunted around and hunted around until he had found where the grey goose was; and it was in the kitchen and would not come out. But Peterkin had a way to bring it; he scattered the barley-corn all about, and when the grey goose saw that, it came out quickly enough and began to eat the grains as fast as it could gobble. But Peterkin did not give it much time for this, for up he caught it, and off he went as fast as he could scamper.
Then the grey goose flapped its wings and began squalling. “Master! master! Here I am! here I am! It is Peterkin who has me!”
Out ran the giant with his great iron club, and after Peterkin he came as fast as he could lay foot to the ground. But Peterkin had the buttered side of the cake this time, for he ran over the pitch road as easily as though it were made of good stones; that was because his boots were smeared with tallow. As for the giant, he stuck to it as a fly sticks to the butter, so that it was very slow travelling that he made of it.
Then the hare took Peterkin up on its back, and away it scampered till the wind whistled behind his ears. When it had come to the river it said:
“Brother Pike! Brother Pike! Here are folks would like to cross the wide river.”
Then the pike took them on its back and away they went. But it was a tight squeeze through that crack, I can tell you, for they had hardly left the shore when up came the giant, fuming and boiling like water in the pot.