e daughter used
to be sent down into the cellar to draw the beer for supper. So one
evening she had gone down to draw the beer, and she happened to look
up at the ceiling while she was drawing, and she saw a mallet stuck
in one of the beams. It must have been there a long, long time,
but somehow or other she had never noticed it before, and she began
a-thinking. And she thought it was very dangerous to have that mallet
there, for she said to herself: "Suppose him and me was to be married,
and we was to have a son, and he was to grow up to be a man, and come
down into the cellar to draw the beer, like as I'm doing now, and the
mallet was to fall on his head and kill him, what a dreadful thing it
would be!" And she put down the candle and the jug, and sat herself
down and began a-crying.

Well, they began to wonder upstairs how it was that she was so long
drawing the beer, and her mother went down to see after her, and she
found her sitting on the settle crying, and the beer running over the
floor. "Why, whatever is the matter?" said her mother. "Oh, mother!"
says she, "look at that horrid mallet! Suppose we was to be married,
and was to have a son, and he was to grow up, and was to come down to
the cellar to draw the beer, and the mallet was to fall on his head
and kill him, what a dreadful thing it would be!" "Dear, dear! what
a dreadful thing it would be!" said the mother, and she sat her down
beside the daughter and started crying too. Then after a bit the
father began to wonder that they didn't come back, and he went down
into the cellar to look after them himself, and there they two sat
crying, and the beer running all over the floor. "Whatever is the
matter?" says he. "Why," says the mother, "look at that horrid mallet.
Just suppose, if our daughter and her sweetheart was to be married,
and was to have a son, and he was to grow up, and was to come down
into the cellar to draw the beer, and the mallet was to fall on his
head and kill him, what a dreadful thing it would be!" "Dear, dear,
dear! so it would!" said the father, and he sat himself down aside of
the other two, and started a-crying.

Now the gentleman got tired of stopping up in the kitchen by himself,
and at last he went down into the cellar too, to see what they were
after; and there they three sat crying side by side, and the beer
running all over the floor. And he ran straight and turned the tap.
Then he said: "Whatever are you three doing, sitting th