"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 it into a strong
castle, well fortified against all danger. They stopped up the holes and
cracks with tufts of grass, and piled a wall of big and little stones
right round the house. When the repairs were completed they called it
Hencastle.
"During the autumn some of the fowls ventured forth into the cornfields
that lay near the haunts of men, and collected a store of grain to
supply them with food during the winter.
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