HOW JACK WON A WIFE
 

THERE was once a poor farmer lad named Jack, who loved to be setting snares for rabbits and tramping about the fields and woods after berries. He liked also to invent funny tricks that annoyed people at first, but afterward made them laugh. This sort of thing seemed to him a good deal pleasanter than working, but at last he grew to be a young man, and his father sent him off to seek his fortune.

He left home early in the morning and walked on and on all day. Toward nightfall the weather turned rainy and presently he sought shelter at a lonesome little house in the midst of a wood. When he looked in at the door he saw an old woman sitting by the fire.

"Good evening," said the youth, "it is terrible weather outside tonight."

"Indeed it is," the old woman agreed, "and what is it brings you here?"

"I want supper and a bed," he replied.

"You can't have them," said she.

"What's to hinder me?" he inquired.

"The owners of the house," she answered. "They are six men who are not at home just at present. It may interest you to know that they are robbers, and so they are out mostly nights; but in the morning when they come back, if they were to find you here, they'd take your head off."

"Well," said Jack, "I'm not going to catch my death lying out under a hedge such a night as this. Here I'm going to stay. So give me something out of the cupboard to eat."

 

 The woman told him he would be sorry later, but she got up and gave him a good supper. Then Jack went to bed and to sleep. When he awoke in the morning he found six ugly-looking men standing about his bed. He rose on his elbow and looked at them with great contempt.

"Who are you?" asked the chief of the group, "and what's your business?"

"I am a master robber," said Jack, "and I am looking for apprentices to work under me. If you fellows are any good I'll take you."

They were a little startled at this reply, and the head man said, "Well, get up, and after breakfast we'll find out who is to be the master."

Breakfast was just finished when they noticed a farmer going along the road driving a fine large goat to market. "Look," said Jack, "will any of you undertake to steal that goat from the owner before he gets out of the woods, and that without the slightest violence?"

"I couldn't," said one.

"I couldn't," echoed each of the others.

"I'm your master," said Jack. "Give me a stout rope and I'll get the goat."

They gave him the rope and he ran through the woods till he got well ahead of the farmer. Then he climbed a big tree that reached out over the highway and suspended himself by the rope from a limb right above the road. He had the rope under his arms, but it was concealed beneath his coat so that anyone glancing hastily might think it was around his neck.

Along came the farmer and saw the man hanging from the bough of the tree. "Lord save us!" he exclaimed, "what a hard lot yours must have been to make you hang yourself! This is a bad business and I must run and tell the people at the nearest house and get them to send for the constable."

So he tied his goat to a sapling and hurried off. Jack at once came down from the tree, took the goat and returned to the robbers' house. "We didn't think you could do it," said the robbers. "You shall be our master."

Then they showed him the cave where their money was hidden and swore obedience to him. The next day they asked Jack if they might go to a fair at a big town about ten miles distant.

"Why, yes," said Jack, "go along, and I will stay here and look after things."

So off they went. Then Jack paid a visit to the treasure cave, filled all his pockets with gold and put on a rich suit of clothes. That done, he got the goat from the barn and tied to its neck a little bag containing ten guineas, and drove the creature to the home of its owner. The farmer and his wife were at the door, and when they saw the goat they clapped their hands and laughed for joy.

"Do you know who owns this beast?" asked Jack.

"It is ours," they replied.

"I found it in the woods," explained Jack. "Is that bag with ten guineas in it that's hung from the goat's neck yours?"

"Faith, it isn't!" they answered.

"Well, you can keep it, at any rate," said Jack. "I don't want it."

"Heaven bless you!" said they.

Jack then left them and travelled on till he came to his father's house. When he arrived it was the dusk of evening. He went in and said, "God save all here!"

"God save you kindly, sir!" his father responded. "Could I have a night's lodging?" Jack asked. "Oh, sir, our place isn't fit for the likes of a gentleman such as you!" replied his father.

"Don't you know your own son?" said Jack.

His father and the others opened their eyes very wide .then, and they all jumped to clasp him in their arms. "But, Jack, where did you get the fine clothes?" they inquired.

So he told them all about his adventures, and then they went to bed.

"Father," said Jack the next morning, "go over to the landlord's house and tell him I wish to marry his daughter."

The landlord, or "squire "as he was commonly called, lived near by, and he had a large house, and so much money he did not even know how much it was. As for his daughter, she was as good and wise as she was pretty. Jack's father was reluctant to undertake the young man's errand. "I'd only be wasting my time," he declared, "and I'm afraid the squire would set his dogs at me."

"Don't be anxious," said Jack.   "Tell him I am a gentleman worth a thousand pounds, all of it taken from the biggest rogues alive. Tell him how I beat the thieves at their own business and say that there is not my equal for cleverness in all Britain, and be sure the young lady is by when you speak of these things."

"It's a queer errand you're sending me on," the father responded, "but I'll go if you say so."

In two hours he was back, and Jack asked him, "What news?"

"Droll news enough," the father answered. "The lady didn't seem a bit unwilling, and I suspect you've spoken to her about the matter before, but the squire laughed and said if you could, without their knowledge, take the goose away when it's cooking at their kitchen fire next Sunday he'd see about your marrying his daughter."

The next Sunday, after the people had come home from church, the squire and all his family were sitting in the kitchen, and the goose was turning on the spit before the fire. Presently the kitchen door opened and a miserable old beggar man with a big bag on his back put in his head. "Will there be anything for me when dinner is over?" said he.

"To be sure," the squire replied, "but we have no room for you in here just now. So sit in the porch for a while."

"God bless your honor's family, and yourself!" responded the beggar.

Soon, someone that was sitting near the window cried out, "Oh, there's a big hare scampering like the mischief across the yard! Shall we run out and catch it?"

"Catch a hare, indeed!" exclaimed the squire. "Much chance we'd have. No, we'll sit where we are."

The hare made its escape into the garden. It had come out of the beggar's bag, and the beggar was none other than Jack in disguise. Pretty soon he let loose another hare from his bag.

 

 "Oh, there is the hare again!" cried the person who was near the window. "The gates are shut and it can't get away. Let's have a chase!"

"Stay quiet, I tell you!" commanded the squire.

In a little while Jack set free a third hare, and the person near the window shouted that the hare was still in the yard. Then the family couldn't be kept indoors any longer. Out they ran every one, the squire bringing up the rear, and the beggar called after him, "Shall I turn the spit, your honor, while you're catching the hare?"

"Do so!" replied the squire, "and don't let anyone in on your life."

"Faith and I won't," the beggar promised, "you may depend on it!"

The third hare got away after the other two, and when the family returned from the hunt, hot and tired with their exertions, there was neither beggar nor goose in the kitchen. Then they knew Jack had got the best of them, and while they were thinking how they should make out a dinner, a messenger came from Jack's father begging that the squire, the mistress and the young lady would step across the fields and dine at his house.

So they walked over and ate dinner and there was roast beef and roast turkey and their own roast goose. The squire had like to have burst his waistcoat with laughing at the way the goose had been taken; and Jack's good clothes and good manners did not lessen any liking the young lady already had for him.

Jack accompanied his father's guests when they started for home, but the squire and his wife soon went on ahead while Jack and the young lady loitered along together, often stopping to pick flowers or to rest whenever they could find any excuse for so doing.

Shortly after the squire reached his mansion, Father Lawrence, the priest, called, and the squire told him of the trick Jack had played.

"Well," said the priest, "I don't believe he could have made a fool of me that way."

"Ha!" said the squire, "you'd better look out for yourself or he'll trick you as badly as he did me."

"No danger," responded the priest, and he continued to laugh and joke the squire for losing his goose so easily.

The squire did not enjoy being twitted about the matter, and pretty soon he went outdoors and left the priest talking with the goodwife. Jack and the young lady were just approaching, and the squire called to them, and addressing Jack, said, "See here, Father Lawrence is inside there, and he has been telling me what a fool I am to have let you take my goose as you did. Now, couldn't you play off a really good trick on him?"

"It wouldn't be very hard to do that," said Jack.

So he got a sheet and wrapped it about him and stuck some goose feathers in his hair and fastened a swan's wing to each shoulder. When the priest left the squire's in the early dusk of the evening to go home he went the nearest way, which was by a field path. As soon as Jack saw him started, he ran roundabout and got ahead of him. Then he climbed into a maple-tree by the pathside and as the priest drew near began to call, "Father Lawrence! Father Lawrence!"

"Who is wanting me?" asked the priest looking up into the tree.

"I am an angel," replied Jack, "sent to announce to thee that because of thy piety thou shalt be taken away alive into heaven. Hold thyself in readiness to go there with me next week Monday night, for then I will come to fetch thee and bear thee away with me in a sack."

Father Lawrence fell down on his knees before the angel and thanked him, and the following Sunday he preached a farewell sermon, and said an angel had appeared to him and announced that because of his righteousness he should be taken up alive into heaven. As he told his hearers this, every one in the church, old and young, wept, for they expected never to see him again.

On the appointed evening Jack came to the priest's house clad once more as an angel, and the priest bowed low before him and bade him welcome. Then the priest got into the sack that Jack had brought, and Jack tied it up tight and dragged it away over the stubble and stones toward the squire's house.

"Oh, oh!" cried the priest in the sack, "where are you taking me?"

"The way to heaven is not an easy one," replied Jack, and continued to drag him along.

So, when the route was rough, the priest fancied they were going over the mountains, and when the bag bounced into a puddle, he thought they were passing through a cloud.

At last Jack reached the squire's and flung his burden into the goose-house, where the geese began to hiss and peck at the kicking thing inside of the sack. "Oh, oh, oh!" screamed the priest, "where am I now?"

"You are in purgatory," Jack answered, and off he went.

Next morning when the goose-girl came to let out the geese she heard the priest as he lay bemoaning himself in the bag. "Mercy! who is that, and what ails you?" said she.

 
Father Lawrence and the Angel