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THE BREMEN TOWN MUSICIANS. 137
“T should like to know who would be cheerful when his
. neck is in danger?” answered the cat. "Now that I am old
. my teeth are getting blunt, and I would rather sit by the oven
. and purr than run about after mice, and my mistress wanted
. to drown me; so I took myself off; but good advice is
scarce, and I do not know what is to become of me.”
“Go with us to Bremen,” said the ass, "and become
town musician. You understand serenading.”
The cat thought well of the idea, and went with them
accordingly. After that the three travellers passed by a yard,
and a cock was perched on the gate crowing with all his
might.
“Your cries are enough to pierce bone and marrow,” said
the ass; " what is the matter?”
“I have foretold good weather for Lady-day, so that all the
shirts may be washed, and dried ; and now on Sunday morning
company is coming, and the mistress has told the cook that I
must be made into soup, and this evening my neck is to be
wrung, so that I am crowing with all my might while I can.”
“You had much better go with us, Chanticleer,” said the
ass. “‘We are going to Bremen. At any rate that will be
better than dying. You have a powerful voice, and when we
are all performing together it will have a very good effect.”
90 the cock consented, and they went on all four together.
But Bremen was too far off to be reached in one day,
. and towards evening they came to a wood, where they deter¬
mined to pass the night. The ass and the dog lay down
under a large tree; the cat got up among the branches, and
the cock flew up to the top, as that was the safest place for
him. Before he went to sleep he looked all round him to the
. four points of the compass, and perceived in the distance a
little light shining, and he called out to his companions that
there must be a house not far off, as he could see a light, so
. the ass said,
" We had better get up and go there, for these are uncom¬
fortable quarters.” The dog began to fancy a few bones, not
quite bare, would do him good. And they all set off in the
direction of the light, and it grew larger and brighter, until at
last it led them to a robber’s house, all lighted up. The ass,
being the biggest, went up to the window, and looked in.