haps so--but who has enough courage for such a desperate step?'
sighed the young cockerels. 'Why, you yourself are no more courageous
than we, else why do you stop here chained up all day, and allow those
tiresome children to come and tease you?'

"'Well,' replied the dog, 'I earn a good livelihood by putting up with
these small discomforts, and besides that, _I_ am not going to be set
twisting on a spit. However, if you particularly wish it, we can go
away somewhere together; but if we do, I may as well tell you at once,
that you will have to feed me.'

"The cockerels, fired by this bold advice, betook themselves at once to
the henroost with the courage of young lions; and after a short but
animated discussion, persuaded the whole of the cocks and hens to run
away and to take Flaps as protector of the community.

"When darkness fell, the dog was unchained for the night as usual, and
as soon as the coast seemed clear, he went to the henhouse, pushed back
the sliding door with his nose, and let them all out.

"Then he and the whole company stole away as quietly as possible through
the yard-gate, away out into the open country.

"The fowls flew and wandered on, the livelong night, perfectly happy in
their freedom, and feeding themselves from the sheaves of corn that
stood in the stubble-fields.

"Whenever Flaps felt hungry, the hens laid him a couple of eggs or so
which he found far nicer than barley-meal and dog-biscuit.

"When they passed through thinly-populated places where they were not
likely to be observed, they marched gaily forward; but whenever there
was a chance of danger, they only travelled by night.

"Meanwhile the cook went early in the morning to kill the chickens; but
on finding the whole place as empty as Mother Hubbard's cupboard, she
fell into a violent fit of hysterics, and the kitchen-maid and pig-boy
had to put her under the pump, and work it hard for a quarter of an hour
before they could revive her.

"After some days' journeying, the wanderers arrived at a large
desolate-looking heath, in the middle of which stood an old
weather-beaten house, apparently uninhabited. Flaps was sent forward to
examine it, and he searched from garret to cellar without finding a
trace of a human being. The fowls then examined the neighbourhood for
two whole days and nights with a like result, and so they determined to
take up their abode in the dwelling.

"In they trooped, and set themselves to work to turn