‘So she is, bless her!’ said his wife. ‘I was only joking.’
‘Nevertheless, I will bring you home this Pail full of lark’s music,’ said Ninnie-Dinnie, with great seriousness; and putting her tiny hand into Tom’s big one, they started off, and Joan watched them out of sight.
When the miner and the child got about half-way to the mine, scores of larks were up in the blue air singing, and their little dark bodies waving to and fro in the rapture of their song, till it seemed to the miner as if their melody was trickling down all over him, and Ninnie-Dinnie declared it was.
As they stood listening, one of the larks began to descend, singing as it came.
‘Now is the time if you want to catch the lark’s music for Mammie Trebisken,’ laughed Tom, watching the bird’s descent. ‘There it is, just over thy soft little head. Up with thy Pail, my dear!’
And Ninnie-Dinnie, with her face as grave as the great boulders lying amongst the golden-blossomed furze and the feathery fronds of the Osmunda, lifted the Pail above her head, and as she did so the strange letters under its rim stood out and glowed like white fire.
‘Little lark, little lark, give me thy music!’ she chanted in a voice as clear and sweet as linnets’ fluting. ‘Little lark, little lark, give me thy song!’ and the small bird twirled down towards her singing wilder and sweeter as it came, until it hovered over the uplifted Pail.
‘It hovered over the uplifted Pail.’
‘The dear little lark has given me its music and its song to make Mammie Trebisken’s heart glad,’ said the child, as the lark dropped on the thyme-scented turf at her feet.