“Please do stop at once. Whoo, whoo, whoo, whoo, twee! It is I who am calling you.” “Can it be possible?” asked Luck, raising his eyes to the top of an old pine, hollow and half dead, on which a great owl was swaying in the wind. “What is it we two can settle together, my bonnie bird?” [Illustration: [Owl]] “It would be indeed a wonder if you recognised me,” answered the owl, “for you had no notion that I was ever helping you, as a modest and honest owl should, by devouring at my own risk the swarms of rats which nibbled away half your crops, good year and bad year. That is why your field now brings you in what will buy you a pretty kingdom, if you know when you have enough. As for me, who have paid dearly for my care of others, I have not one wretched lean rat on the hooks of the larder against daylight, for now at night, with my eyes grown so dim in your service, I can scarcely see where I am going. So I called to you, generous Luck of the Bean-rows, to beg of you one of those good quart measures of beans hanging from your staff. It will keep me alive till my oldest son comes of age, and on his loyalty to you you may reckon.” “Why that, Master Owl,” cried Luck of the Bean-rows, taking one of his own three quart measures from the end of his staff, “is a debt of gratitude, and I am glad to repay it.” The owl darted down on the measure, caught it in his claws and beak, and with one flap of the wing carried it off to the tree-top. “My word, but you are in a hurry to be off!” said the Luck. “May I ask, Master Owl, if I am still far from the great town mother is sending me to?” “You are just going into it,” answered the owl, as he flitted off to another tree. Luck of the Bean-rows went on his way with a lighter staff; he felt sure he must be near the end of his journey, but he had hardly gone a hundred steps when he heard someone else calling: “Behh, behh, bekky! Please stop, Master Luck of the Bean-rows!” “I think I know that voice,” said the Luck, turning round. “Why, yes, of course! It is that bare-faced rogue of a mountain she-goat, which prowls around my field with her kids for a toothsome snack. So it is you, is it, my lady raider?” “What is that about raiding, fair Master Luck? I guess your hedges are too thick, your ditches too deep, your fences too close for any raiding. All one could do was to nip a few leaves that pushed through the chinks of the wattles, and our pruning makes the stalks thrive. You know the old saying: _Sheeps’ teeth, loss and trouble, Goats’ teeth pay back double.”_ “Say no more,” broke in Luck of the Bean-rows; “and may all the ill I wished you fall upon my own head. But why did you stop me, and what can I do to please you, Madame Doe?”