“I shall go to-night,” he said. “And none will know save you. My splendour will linger in the valley for a while, so that you may come more gently to those to whom you bring death. And by-and-by, when I am far away and my reign is forgotten, the memory of me will revive once more with the sun and the pleasant days.”
Then he strode away in the night.
But from the high tree-top came the stork on his long wings; and the cuckoo fluttered out of the tall woods; and the nightingale flew from the thicket with his full-grown young.
The air was filled with the soft murmuring of wings.
The Siskin couple sat and chatted on the edge of the empty nest:
“Do you remember the day when I courted you?” he asked. “I had preened and smartened myself as best I could and you also looked sweet. The beech had just come out: I never saw the wood so green in all my life!”
“How you sang!” said she. “Sing like that again; then perhaps I will accept you once more.”
But the siskin sadly shook his head:
“My voice is gone,” he said.