530 - NURSERY RHYMES.

 

be revenged on Jack, and was already within a mile of the knight’s
house, the country people flying before him in all directions. The
intelligence had no effect on the dauntless Jack, who immediately
said, “ Let him come! I have a tool to pick his teeth ;” and with
this elegant assertion, he invited the guests to witness his per-
formance from a high terrace in the garden of the castle.

It is now necessary to inform the reader that the knight’s
house or castle was situated in an island encompassed with a moat
thirty feet deep and twenty feet wide, passable by a drawbridge.
Now Jack, intending to accomplish his purpose by a clever little
stratagem, employed men to cut through this drawbridge on both
sides nearly to the middle; and then, dressing himself in his
invisible coat, he marched against the giant with his well-tried
sword. As he approached his adversary, although invisible, the
giant, being, as it appears, an epicure in such matters, was aware
of his approach, and exclaimed, in a fearful tone of voice,

Fi, fee, fo, fum! *

I smell the blood of an Englishman :
Be he alive or be he dead,

I’ll grind his bones to make me bread!

“Say you so?” said Jack; “then you are a monstrous miller
indeed.” The giant, deeply incensed, replied, “Art thou that
villain who killed my kinsman? then I will tear thee with my
teeth, and grind thy bones to powder.” “But,” says Jack, still
provoking him, “you must catch me first, if you please.” So
putting aside his invisible coat, so that the giant might see him,

* These lines are quoted by Edgar in the tragedy of ‘‘ King Lear,”