Bedad they were a little cowed, and says the head man, "Well, get up, and after breakfast, we'll see who is to be the master, and who the journeyman."
They were just done breakfast, when what should they see but a farmer driving a fine large goat to market. "Will any of you," says Jack, "undertake to steal that goat from the owner before he gets out of the wood, and that without the smallest violence?"
"I couldn't do it," says one; and "I couldn't do it," says another.
"I'm your master," says Jack, "and I'll do it."
He slipped out, went through the trees to where there was a bend in the road, and laid down his right brogue in the very middle of it. Then he ran on to another bend, and laid down his left brogue and went and hid himself.
When the farmer sees the first brogue, he says to himself, "That would be worth something if it had the fellow, but it is worth nothing by itself."
He goes on till he comes to the second brogue.
"What a fool I was," says he, "not to pick up the other! I'll go back for it."
So he tied the goat to a sapling in the hedge, and returned for the brogue. But Jack, who was behind a tree had it already on his foot, and when the man was beyond the bend he picked up the other and loosened the goat, and led him off through the wood.
Ochone! the poor man couldn't find the first brogue, and when he came back he couldn't find the second, nor neither his goat.