Nursery Rhyme. LXXVII. Tales.

    There was a man, and he had naught,
        And robbers came to rob him;
    He crept up to the chimney pot,
        And then they thought they had him.

    But he got down on t'other side,
        And then they could not find him;
    He ran fourteen miles in fifteen days,
        And never look'd behind him.

    Pease-porridge hot, pease-porridge cold,
    Pease-porridge in the pot, nine days old.
    Spell me that without a P,
    And a clever scholar you will be.

    Tommy kept a chandler's shop,
    Richard went to buy a mop,
    Tommy gave him such a knock,
    That sent him out of his chandler's shop,

        [The following two stanzas, although they belong to the same piece, are often found separated from each other.]

    Robin and Richard were two pretty men;
    They laid in bed till the clock struck ten;
    Then up starts Robin, and looks at the sky,
    Oh! brother Richard, the sun's very high:

    The bull's in the barn threshing the corn,
    The cock's on the dunghill blowing his horn,
    The cat's at the fire frying of fish,
    The dog's in the pantry breading his dish.

        [The following lines were obtained in Oxfordshire. The story to which it alludes is related by Matthew Paris.]

    One moonshiny night
    As I sat high,
    Waiting for one
    To come by;
    The boughs did bend,
    My heart did ache
    To see what hole the fox did make.

    Up stairs, down stairs, upon my lady's window,
    There I saw a cup of sack and a race of ginger;
    Apples at the fire, and nuts to crack,
    A little boy in the cream-pot up to his neck.