In a great city there lived several men who for their religion were forced to fly for their lives, and not far from the city was an ancient cave under a hill, in which these men entered to secure and refresh themselves; but their persecutors, hearing where they were, stopped up the mouth of the cave, intending to famish them therein; and they, not knowing what was done, so soon as they had refreshed their bodies with victuals, laid themselves down to sleep, and so continued sleeping very sound a long season, until such time as in after ages a shepherd, intending to make himself a harbour, set divers masons to work to dig in this cave, who, with the noise, awakened the men who had been asleep so long therein. The cave being opened, they, thinking it to be day, and had slept but one night, sent one of their company privately into the city for food, for in all this time they had eaten nothing, and well they might be hungry; so, coming to the town; he found all things altered, the inhabitants being other kind of people, as he supposed, than he left the night before. So going to buy some bread, the people refused to take his money, saying they knew not the coin, at which he greatly marvelled. But inquiring further, he found that since their being there three generations had been dead and gone, and a fourth in being; and by computation of time, it appeared they had slept above three hundred years, and lay all this time in their clothes, which were no whit decayed, whereat the people all wondered; and Tom Long the Carrier, staying all the time they slept to see when they would awake, at last brought the news with him. CHAPTER VII. _How Tom Long the Carrier sold his Horse for the Skin, supposing him to be dead; and how a crafty fellow coming by knew what the Horse ailed, and so bought him._ Tom Long the Carrier, travelling on the road, chances to put his horse in a field that was overgrown with hemlock, which Tom's horse, having had no meat all day, ate so greedily on, that it cast him into so sound a sleep that Tom thought he had been dead. Being thus sorely crossed, as he supposed, he began to flay his skin off to sell, whereupon a crafty fellow coming by that way, well knew what the horse ailed, bought him for the price of the skin, and paid Tom the money. He departed, appointing to fetch the horse the very next morning. And when he came on the morrow, the horse was awakened out of his sleep, and got upon his legs again; which, when Tom perceived, he was sorely vexed at his foolish bargain; but his chapman laughed him to scorn for his folly, and so departed with his horse. CHAPTER VIII. _How Tom, Long the Carrier converted all his Carriage to his own use, and thereby recruited himself with another Horse, and of a sad mischance that befel his Horse._