Appendix 
country variant, which tells, not of a man lost, but 
of a bachelor withdrawing to a wood to pray for 
a wife. “‘ Who? who?” the voice seemed to 
ask; and the answer was given, “ Any wife will 
do, Lord; any wife will do.” 
Pigeons figure in another story of this class ; 
and with a voice nowise attributed to the Lord. 
A certain Taffy (I don’t know why he was a 
Welshman, but Richard Jefferies gives it so) 
went to steal a cow from a stall. Near the door 
hung a cage containing a pigeon or dove, usually 
saying nothing but “ Coo-oo.”’ But when the 
thief opened the door to take the cow—what was 
that? A wicked, insinuating voice saying, ‘“‘ Take 
two, take two-o-o.” Surely it was the devil, 
tempting the thief to double his crime? But 
Taffy, thoroughly frightened, fled without a cow 
at all. 
In The Scouring of the White Horse Thomas 
Hughes told how one Job Cork, in great trouble, 
was enjoined by his wife to ‘‘ Ha’ patience and 
think o’ thy namesake,” but retorted with a 
groan, “Ah, but he never had his breeches all 
cockled up ”—for that was Job Cork’s trouble. 
His chamois-leather breeches, wet through after 
game-beating, had been too quickly dried in the 
domestic oven, and proved unwearable in the 
morning. Precisely this was said to have hap- 
pened to a neighbour of my own, in West Surrey. 
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