‘To lose my little white dog is worse than having the Lady Soft Winds and Prince Fire set free from my spells!’ muttered the witch. ‘Worse even than losing the six little maids who played the game with me and did all my spinning.’
‘Give him back his own self this very minute,’ sang the little grey thrush, ‘or else——’
If a threat was implied in the sentence, the witch understood it, for, with a howl of rage, she made a pass with her broom over the dog. As she did so, the dog vanished, and in its place stood a young boy, dark and very handsome, dressed in clothes of a bygone age!
The six little maids stared at him in open-mouthed astonishment, and as they stared as only little maids can, the witch made for the well.
‘Please sing once more, little Thrush Betty,’ cried the boy in a voice it knew so well. ‘This last song will quite end the power of the bad old witch, and keep her down in the bottom of the Witch’s Well until she repents of all she has done.’
‘That will be never!’ snarled the witch; and with a horrible cry, which even the victorious song of the little grey thrush could not drown, she splashed into the well. And when Monday, Tuesday, and the other little maids could get that cry out of their ears, the well and its quaint old arch were no longer to be seen, and near where it had stood was dear little Betty, their friend, who had played the ‘Mother’ in the game, looking very little altered, only a few inches taller, and standing beside her, holding her hand, was the boy, who, in his dog-shape, had done so much for them all.
‘Now let us go home to our mothers,’ cried Friday.
‘I have no mother to go to,’ said the boy sadly, as he hesitated to go with the happy children. ‘Mine died long ago, and I have no home.’
‘Our mothers shall be your mother,’ cried the little maids, ‘and you will never lack anything if you come with us.’
So they all came down through Padstow Town, the boy in their midst.