Still, Jack was pretty tired of his journey when, about eleven o’clock, he met a man coming along. This man was a middle-sized man, but rather stout; he had little bright blue eyes in his round face, and a smile all over it.
“Good-morning, son,” says he to Jack, looking first at him and then at the cow; “and what might you be after this fine morning?”
“ ‘Might!’ ” said Jack, pushing back his cap and mopping his hair. “What I ’ve been after all the morning is this old cow.”
“And what,” said the man, “is the old cow after?”
“She’s after being sold,” said Jack, “because me and my mother want the money, and we can’t keep her any more.”
“And what,” said the man, still looking at Jack, “what d’ye think she’ll fetch?”
“There’s not a better cow than that cow for miles around,” said Jack, “and I ought to know, for we’ve had her for years and years.”
The stranger laughed, and glanced again at Jack as if he liked the look of him. “No question, son,” he said, “but you know how many beans make five.”
“Ay,” said Jack, with a grin, “two in each hand and one in your mouth.”
“Why, so!” said the stranger. “And talking of beans, here you are!” With that he suddenly drew out of his breeches pocket a small handful of bean-seeds. “What d’ye say to them?” he said. “And look well, son, for these here aren’t no ordinary beans, but magic beans; and once had, you’ll never want for more.” His little blue eyes shone like bits of china as he looked at Jack.
Jack stared hard at the beans; and partly because of what the man had said and partly because of what they looked like, he had never set eyes on anything he wanted worse. They were not only more than twice the size of any bean-seeds he had ever seen and of a marvellous clear colour, but there was a look and appearance to them past describing; as though, in spite of lying so still and smooth in the man’s hand—like smooth, water-worn, kidney-shaped pebbles from far down out of the deep blue sea—they were cramful of life and (which was just what the man had said) magic.
Jack turned his eyes away a moment, and thought of what his mother had said, then he glanced at the old cow munching the wayside weeds, then he looked at the man again with his open smiling red face, and last his eyes fixed themselves once more on the beans.
“How many of ’em will you give me,” he said in a husky voice, “if—if they be what you say they be?”
“Seven,” said the man.
Jack licked his lips. “And what’ll I do with them?” he asked still more huskily.
“Answering that,” said the man, “why, being magic, it’s not what you’ll do with them that matters, it’s what they’ll do with themselves.”
Jack’s eyes seemed to twirl completely round in his head. “Right,” he said, “seven!”
So the man counted out the seven beans into Jack’s palm, picking out the brightest colours and the best shapes, then, with a last solemn, friendly wink, he himself turned one way with the old cow, and Jack turned back and went off the other.
Even though he stopped every now and again to look at his beans, and, with a little spit, to polish one or two of them on his sleeve, Jack came in sight of home in about half the time he had taken until he met the stranger; but now he went more slowly. He had hardly put his hand on the latch of the garden gate when his mother caught sight of him over her washtub from the window and ran out.
“Bless me! Jack,” says she, “you have been quick; and me scarcely able to breathe thinking of you and all. How much?”
Jack stood very still, and all of a sudden the blood seemed to trickle out of his body, and his beans seemed to be of no more value than bits of flint in the road.
“Well, mother, I went on and on,” he began, “and just before I got to the old bridge, I see a man coming along. He was a fat man, and as he came along his face—”
“Yes?” said his mother.
“Well,” Jack continued, the words coming slower and slower, “this man—he looked at the cow and he looked at me, and he asked me what I was after, and I told him; and then he said, what was the old cow after, and I told him; and then—”
“Mercy on us!” cried his mother; “if you don’t tell me how much this very minute, I shall drop down dead where I stand.”
“He give me these, mother,” said Jack, fetching out the beans from his breeches pocket, and holding them out in his clammy palm. “At least, there are seven; and he—he said they were magic, mother—”
Jack’s mother stared at the beans; her face had suddenly gone white as chalk, and she seemed to be trembling all over.
“Them!” she said. “Them! Oh, Jack!” She could say no more. With fingers still wet and cockled from the washtub, she caught Jack’s outstretched hand such a slap that the beans were scattered in all directions; and then she suddenly burst out crying and ran off into the house.
Jack hid himself for the rest of the afternoon, never going near the house until dusk, then, having crept in and found an old crust in the larder, he had a drink of water and went off to bed.
Strange dreams he had; but the strangest of all was to come in the morning after he had woken. For when, first thing, he opened his eyes, his room was full of a dim greenish twilight; and though the birds were all merrily singing their morning chorus, it looked almost as dark as night at his lattice window. It was as though the cottage lay in a dense shadow. He pushed open the window and looked out, and, sure enough, it was no wonder the house had seemed to be in shadow, for he could see nothing but a tangle of green stalks or bines and leaves—stalks as thick as rope, and leaves a foot long at least, and with sprays of buds like cherries already showing. This great tangle of growth had its roots right under his window, but though he leaned over the narrow sill so far that he nearly toppled out, he couldn’t catch any glimpse of the top of it.
How Jack got into his shirt and breeches that morning he didn’t know. His head was all of a whirl; but almost before you could say Jack Robinson he found himself, shoes in hand, creeping down the narrow staircase, not daring even to breathe. But even when he got out into the garden and had come close up under the huge beanstalk, he couldn’t see to the top of it. It wreathed and reared itself up and up and up above his head till its fresh green twinings vanished into the uttermost blue of the sky.
He climbed and climbed and he climbed.
Jack’s heart was thumping like a steam engine. Then the man hadn’t cheated him! The beans were magic! Yes, and had mounted up from earth to heaven in the dark of but one brief night. Now the sun was beginning to rise in the east—as though out of a huge furnace; the morning breeze whistled softly in the twisted stems of the beanstalk; birds were fluttering about it, as if in curiosity and wonder, and a skylark was shrilling, circling up and up.
Jack could bear himself no longer. He gave a last long look at his mother’s window. Her curtains were drawn, she was still asleep. Indeed, he seemed to be the only human being stirring yet, and almost before he knew it, he had started to climb the beanstalk. He climbed and climbed and he climbed and he climbed, every now and then pausing to take breath and to look down on the scene he had left behind him. Far, far below through the air, and no bigger than a rabbit-hutch, he could see his mother’s cottage, and behind it the green hill, and a little bit to the west of that the old square stone tower and glinting copper weathercock of the village church, but all so dwarfed and smalled in the distance that even the widest field in view, pale-green with young wheat, looked no bigger than a cotton handkerchief.
Soon he seemed to be at evens with the sun, its great ball like molten glass; still, on he went until he could almost peep over the very edge of the round tilted world into the blue of space, and his head went so dizzy he had to shut his eyes.
In the distance . . . stood a huge, louring Castle.
At last he reached the very tiptop of the beanstalk, for there it stopped. Jack stepped off, and found himself in a strange country ind
eed. It seemed to be another layer. It must, he thought, be hidden from the earth by the dazzling blue of the heavens. Anyhow, here he was, and glad to be so. It was a country of smooth open hills and verdant valleys, no fences, walls or hedges, with a low shallow sky over all, and not a single house or habitation to be seen, except in the distance where stood a huge, louring Castle.
Jack stood and looked about him, his heart still thumping away under his ribs, in part because of the long climb he had had, and in part because of the strangeness of this new country he was in. By this time he was famishing hungry, for he had had precious little supper and no breakfast, so he decided to set off at once to the Castle in hope to get something to eat and drink.
He had not gone above a mile or so when, close by a coppice of willows, he met a stranger, and this was a woman. She had a long, pale face under her mantle, and dark eyes looking almost as if she had come out of a dream, and she asked Jack where he was bound for. Jack told her, to the Castle.
“Then go with care, Jack,” she said, naming his name, “for in that Castle lives an Ogre. All his treasures have been stolen. Keep your wits, then, Jack, when he comes near; and creep soft as a shadow. It’s danger. But having come, go on; and remember my bidding.”
Jack thanked this stranger and went on, but when in a little while he ventured to look back after her, she was gone. That word ogre stayed in his mind, and he began to wonder why there were no signs of human beings to be seen at all—no houses, or fields even; and it was so utterly silent that even the rattle of a stone under Jack’s shoes startled him as though a voice had called. There were a few trees, but no birds sang in them, though now and again sulphur-coloured butterflies were to be seen playing in the hollows over the blue-flowering heads of a tufty weed like hemp agrimony.
Once Jack heard, too, a sound like the clapping of tiny pebbles together, but this he thought was only insects. Still, he stayed for nothing, but trudged on; and the Castle came steadily nearer. Yet, even now, it was much further away than he had supposed, and by the time he reached the great gates in its towering walls it was getting towards evening. He craned back and gazed high above his head at the stone walls, and at thought of the Ogre his blood went cold in his body.
He stood there looking awhile, then knocked with his knuckles. No answer. He knocked again, then kicked with his shoe; but still no answer. Then, seeing a rusty and cobwebbed bell-pull hanging down in the corner, he tugged at that. A footstep sounded, and a narrow door cut out in one of the big spiked gates opened a little, and a woman looked out at him. Seeing only this boy, Jack, there, she gazed at him in astonishment, and asked him what he wanted.
Jack pulled at his cap and smiled at her as pleasantly as he could, and asked if he might have a bite of food and a mug of drink.
“And if you please, mum,” he went on, pulling a long face, “it’s getting on for night and bitter cold, and I’ve nowhere to sleep.” He could speak as wheedling as a blind beggar when he liked, and the woman at this looked a good deal more friendly. Nevertheless, she shook her head at him, peered about her as if she were half-afraid of what she might see, and only warned him again and again to turn back.
“Run off as fast as ever you can,” she said, “and go back to the place you’ve come from. Though where that is I can’t so much as give a guess,” she said. “What’s more, boy, you have precious little time, for the Ogre that lives in this Castle may be back at any minute, and you’re just the kind of morsel he’d be glad to see. Don’t you mistake me, boy: he’d gobble you up before his supper quicker than a cat eats flies; so run off as fast as you can, and get out of sight and smell.”
Jack tried his very utmost not to show how deadly frightened he felt at this. But having come so far, he thought to himself, it was no good turning back now, especially after what the stranger had said; so he smiled at the woman again, and begged and begged, if only for a drink of water.
“I’m that dry, mum, with walking,” he said, “my tongue’s like a chip of wood. And run away, mum! My legs would give under me!”
The woman continued to look at him through the little gate, and still she hesitated; but at last—and already the evening light was beginning to fade—she opened the door wider and beckoned him in. “Come along, then, quick,” she said. “But I warn you, if the Ogre catches so much as a glim of you, you’ll be gone for good and all.”
“Yes, mum,” said Jack as steadily as he could manage, and followed her in under the dark echoing stone arch and across a courtyard, then down a corkscrew flight of worn stone steps into the Ogre’s kitchen, taking good care to remember exactly the way he went. This kitchen, with its square stone flags, prodigious stools and potboard, was almost as big as a small church, but cheerful, for the tea-tray plates on the dresser that seemed to be of pewter, twinkled merrily in the fire-shine.
Jack saw, too, where the Ogre’s chair was drawn up to the table, but he could see nothing of what was on the table except the top of a metal pepper-pot like a flour dredger, because he was not tall enough. A thin smoke was floating up out of a crack in the brick oven, which seemed a mighty big oven even for a giant, and on a spit over the fire was what looked like a sheep roasting.
The woman sat him down on a log of wood so near the great stone fireplace that it was a little too warm to be comfortable. She gave him a hunch of bread and a mug of buttermilk. But the mug was so large and heavy that Jack could scarcely lift it to his mouth. However, he was famished for want of food, and he didn’t much mind that; and while he munched he looked about him. There was plenty to see.
As he was sipping his buttermilk, there suddenly broke out a knocking in the back of the Castle, so loud that even the windows shook. At this the woman seemed to be a good deal put about. She hastily snatched away Jack’s mug, scattered his crumbs with her apron, pushed Jack himself into a fusty cupboard near the hearth, and all but closed its door. Jack guessed pretty well why this had happened, so he sat there quiet as a mouse in the heat, keeping away from the wall nearest the fire, and listened.
As soon as the Ogre appeared at the door leading into the kitchen, he slowly lifted his head and began sniffing and snuffing about him in the air, then bawled out in a resounding voice:
“Fee, fi, fo, fum!
I smell the blood of an Englishman.
If he be living or if he be dead,
I’ll grind his bones to make my bread.”
Jack, keeping well back and peeping out of the cupboard, at sound of this roaring voice fairly shook in his shoes.
“Peace, peace!” said the dark woman to the giant. “You weary me with your silly shouting. Where are your wits? What you smell must be the two travellers that lie in the dungeon. And you know yourself they’re not ready yet.”
The Ogre mumbled and grumbled, and never ceased doing so until the woman had somehow lugged the great roast off the spit on to a dish, and he had sharpened his knife and begun his supper. There was a platter of red marrow-bones, too, which he crunched up like brandy-balls.
When he had eaten and drunken—and a mighty ugly noise he made over it—he roared at the woman to bring him his moneybags, and a hard job she had to carry them. There were twenty-two of these bags in all, containing pieces of gold and silver almost of the size of plates and saucers. Jack’s mouth fairly watered as he watched, and he could scarcely keep from laughing at the Ogre’s clumsiness and stupidity, for when he dropped a piece of money and it fell on the flagstones, he heard the ring of it and stooped to pick it up. But if the piece of money fell soundlessly on the mat of sheepskins at his feet, he paid no heed and left it lying there. Jack watched these pieces of money in particular.
When at last the Ogre had finished counting his money and had tied up his bags again—and he handled every coin as if it were his heart’s delight—he sat back in his chair, and after staring for some little time into the empty air he fell asleep. Soon he was snoring like a gale in a chimney. But to make sure surer Jack waited in the cupboard for some little time befo
re even stirring. Then as quiet as a shadow, he crept out over the flagstones, and keeping well away from the Ogre’s boots, he stuffed four or five of the smaller pieces of money into his jacket pockets, and tucked one or two of the larger (and all of gold) under his arm. Then he tiptoed out of the kitchen, up the stone steps, and out by the wicket gate. Once out, he set off as fast as he could for the Beanstalk.
Now and again he looked back or stayed to listen, but there was not a sound to be heard. The money was heavy, and it was dark in spite of the star-shine which shone like a faint luminous mist in the air, but he’d had a good meal, felt as happy as a skylark, and trudged on rejoicing.
His mother had been waiting up all night for him, and when she saw him come grinning in at the door, tears of sheer joy came into her eyes and splashed on to his cheeks. She hugged him in her arms and kissed him, and then pushed him away and scolded him for having put her in such a tremble!
But when Jack showed her his great gold pieces of money and told her his story and his adventures, and of the Ogre and his Castle, and all he had seen and done, she could scarcely speak for delight, and kissed him seven times over. Jack told her everything, began again, and then suddenly fell asleep in his chair, he was so tired out with it all. Without rousing him, his mother untied and took off his shoes, covered him up with a blanket and left him to have his sleep out.
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