The Hedley Kow


There was once an old woman, who earned a poor living by going errands
and such like, for the farmers' wives round about the village where she
lived. It wasn't much she earned by it; but with a plate of meat at one
house, and a cup of tea at another, she made shift to get on somehow,
and always looked as cheerful as if she hadn't a want in the world.

Well, one summer evening as she was trotting away homewards, she came
upon a big black pot lying at the side of the road.

"Now _that_," said she, stopping to look at it, "would be just the very
thing for me if I had anything to put into it! But who can have left it
here?" and she looked round about, as if the person it belonged to must
be not far off. But she could see no one.

"Maybe it'll have a hole in it," she said thoughtfully:--

"Ay, that'll be how they've left it lying, hinny. But then it 'd do fine
to put a flower in for the window; I'm thinking I'll just take it home,
anyways." And she bent her stiff old back, and lifted the lid to look
inside.

"Mercy me!" she cried, and jumped back to the other side of the road;
"_if it is fit brim full o' gold_ PIECES!!"