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 They seized it and made off with it as fast as they could, leaving their pots and pans behind.

Kate thought she must use the new utensils, but as there was no lack in the kitchen, she knocked the bottom out of every pot and pan, and hung them on the fence round the house as ornaments.

When Fred came home and saw the new decorations, he said: ‘Kate, whatever have you been doing now?’

‘I bought them, Fred, with the yellow counters which were hidden in the stable, but I did not get them myself; the Pedlars dug them up.’

‘Alas, wife!’ said Fred, ‘what have you done’? Those were not counters, they were pure gold, and all that we possess. You should not have done it.’

‘Well, Fred, I did not know; you should have told me.’

Kate stood for a while thinking, then she said: ‘Listen, Fred, we will run after the thieves and get the money back.’

‘Come along then,’ said Fred, ‘we will try what we can do; but we must take some butter and cheese with us to eat on the way.’

‘All right,’ she answered. So they set out, but as Fred was fleeter of foot than Kate he was soon ahead of her.

‘I shall be the gainer,’ she said; ‘I shall be foremost when we turn.’

Soon they came to a mountain, and on both sides of the road there were deep cart ruts. ‘There, just see,’ said Kate, ‘how the poor earth is torn and scratched and squeezed; it can never be whole again as long as it lives.’

Then out of the kindness of her heart she took the butter and smeared the ruts right and left, so that they might not be torn by the wheels.

As she was stooping in this compassionate act, one of the cheeses fell out of her pocket, and rolled down the hill.

Kate said: ‘I have come up the hill once, and I don’t mean to do it again; I will send another of the cheeses to fetch it. So she took another out of her pocket and rolled it down.