then he went into the dairy and found enough cream left to fill the churn again, and so he began to churn, for butter they must have at dinner. when he had churned a bit, he remembered that their milking cow was still shut up in the byre, and hadn't had a bit to eat or a drop to drink all the morning, though the sun was high. then all at once he thought 'twas too far to take her down to the meadow, so he'd just get her up on the house top for the house, you must know, was thatched with sods, and a fine crop of grass was growing there. now the house lay close up against a steep down, and he thought if he laid a plank across to the thatch at the back he'd easily get the cow up.