“I’ll be at work ploughing at the east end of the village. I’ll have a white horse and a black horse.”
When night came, Jack went into the byre. The master came home. He asked where the boy was.
“I don’t know where he is,” said the mistress. “He came in here and sat down by the fire. I bade him bring in a cleeve of turf. He said he wouldn’t. I said he shouldn’t be there if he didn’t work. He said he wouldn’t do a turn till night. We had a quarrel. I haven’t set eyes on him since then.”
They went to bed. They heard a noise in the byre. “The cattle have broken loose,” said the mistress. “They are goring one another.” The master called to the servant-girl to go out and look into the byre; that the cattle were broken loose. The girl got up and went out. She was a while outside. She couldn’t catch the cattle. The master got up himself and went out. The girl was in the byre before him. He kissed the girl. They came in. The master said two of the cattle were broken loose. Jack was in the byre all the time watching them, and when they went to bed he came into the house and went to bed. He got up on the morrow morning. “I never saw the work I’d rather do than ploughing,” said he. “It’s time to turn the soil up. Let us go ploughing to-day.”
“I don’t care,” said the master. They got the breakfast ready. They took the beasts with them to go ploughing. The two beasts were black. “I never saw anything I disliked more than a black beast.” Jack went in and brought out a white sheet. He put it on one of the beasts. He then had a black beast and a white beast. They went ploughing the land that was nearest to them. When the middle of the day came, Jack raised his head, and he ploughing. He looked before him. He saw the woman coming near them, with a bundle in her hand. “I don’t know,” said he, “who that woman over there is.” The master looked.
“It is my wife,” said he, “coming with our dinner.”
“What a right sort of woman!” said Jack.
When the mistress came to them she was ashamed to go past. They sat down and went to take their dinner. They had a good dinner. There were a great many eggs.
“It’s a pity,” said the master, “the man over there hasn’t some dinner.”
“Musha,” said Jack, “I’ll go and bring him some.”