you three before; and now I shall start out on my travels again, and
when I can find three bigger sillies than you three, then I'll come
back and marry your daughter." So he wished them good-bye, and started
off on his travels, and left them all crying because the girl had lost
her sweetheart.

Well, he set out, and he travelled a long way, and at last he came to
a woman's cottage that had some grass growing on the roof. And the
woman was trying to get her cow to go up a ladder to the grass, and
the poor thing durst not go. So the gentleman asked the woman what she
was doing. "Why, lookye," she said, "look at all that beautiful grass.
I'm going to get the cow on to the roof to eat it. She'll be quite
safe, for I shall tie a string round her neck, and pass it down the
chimney, and tie it to my wrist as I go about the house, so she can't
fall off without my knowing it." "Oh, you poor silly!" said the
gentleman, "you should cut the grass and throw it down to the cow!"
But the woman thought it was easier to get the cow up the ladder than
to get the grass down, so she pushed her and coaxed her and got her
up, and tied a string round her neck, and passed it down the chimney,
and fastened it to her own wrist. And the gentleman went on his way,
but he hadn't gone far when the cow tumbled off the roof, and hung by
the string tied round her neck, and it strangled her. And the weight
of the cow tied to her wrist pulled the woman up the chimney, and she
stuck fast half-way and was smothered in the soot.

Well, that was one big silly.

And the gentleman went on and on, and he went to an inn to stop the
night, and they were so full at the inn that they had to put him in a
double-bedded room, and another traveller was to sleep in the other