Part 15 (2/2)

”'Well, my dear Dragon,' said Reynard, 'this is a very hard nut to crack. I can't get it into my head how you, who are so big and mighty a beast, could find room to lie under yon stone.'

”'Can't you,' said the Dragon; 'well, I lay under the hillside, and sunned myself, and down came a landslip, and hurled the stone over me.'

”'All very likely, I dare say,' said Reynard; 'but still I can't understand it, and what's more, I won't believe it till I see it.'

”So the man said they had better prove it, and the Dragon crawled down into the hole again; but in the twinkling of an eye they whipped out the lever, and down the stone crashed again on the Dragon.

”'Lie now there till Doomsday,' said the fox. 'You would eat the man, would you, who saved your life?'

”The Dragon groaned, and moaned, and begged hard to come out; but the two went their way, and left him alone.

”The very first Thursday night Reynard came to be lord and master over the hen-roost, and hid himself behind a great pile of wood hard by. When the maid went to feed the fowls, in stole Reynard. She neither saw nor heard anything of him; but her back was scarce turned before he had sucked blood enough for a week, and stuffed himself so that he couldn't stir. So when she came again in the morning, there Reynard lay and snored, and slept in the morning sun, with all four legs stretched straight; and he was as sleek and round as a German sausage.

”Away ran the la.s.sie for the goody, and she came, and all the la.s.sies with her, with sticks and brooms to beat Reynard; and, to tell the truth, they nearly banged the life out of him; but, just as it was almost all over with him, and he thought his last hour was come, he found a hole in the floor, and so he crept out, and limped and hobbled off to the wood.

”'Oh, oh,' said Reynard; 'how true it is. 'Tis the way of the world; and this is how it pays its debts.'”

THE PANCAKE.

”Once on a time there was a goody who had seven hungry bairns, and she was frying a pancake for them. It was a sweet-milk pancake, and there it lay in the pan bubbling and frizzling so thick and good, it was a sight for sore eyes to look at. And the bairns stood round about, and the goodman sat by and looked on.

”'Oh, give me a bit of pancake, mother, dear; I am so hungry,' said one bairn.

”'Oh, darling mother,' said the second.

”'Oh, darling, good mother,' said the third.

”'Oh, darling, good, nice mother,' said the fourth.

”'Oh, darling, pretty, good, nice mother,' said the fifth.

”'Oh, darling, pretty, good, nice, clever mother,' said the sixth.

”'Oh, darling, pretty, good, nice, clever, sweet mother,' said the seventh.

”So they begged for the pancake all round, the one more prettily than the other; for they were so hungry and so good.

”'Yes, yes, bairns, only bide a bit till it turns itself,'--she ought to have said 'till I can get it turned,'--'and then you shall all have some--a lovely sweet-milk pancake; only look how fat and happy it lies there.'

”When the pancake heard that, it got afraid, and in a trice it turned itself all of itself, and tried to jump out of the pan; but it fell back into it again t'other side up, and so when it had been fried a little on the other side too, till it got firmer in its flesh, it sprang out on the floor, and rolled off like a wheel through the door and down the hill.

”'Holloa! Stop, pancake!' and away went the goody after it, with the frying-pan in one hand, and the ladle in the other, as fast as she could, and her bairns behind her, while the goodman limped after them last of all.

”'Hi! won't you stop? Seize it. Stop, pancake, they all screamed out, one after the other, and tried to catch it on the run and hold it; but the pancake rolled on and on, and in the twinkling of an eye it was so far ahead that they couldn't see it, for the pancake was faster on its feet than any of them.

”So when it had rolled awhile it met a man.

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