‘Pretending, are ’ee, an?’ laughed Tom.
‘No!’ cried Ninnie-Dinnie. ‘Listen!’
And the miner, putting his ear close to the Pail, heard, to his unspeakable amazement, a lark singing quite distinctly, yet rather faintly, as it were singing far away.
‘Jimmerychry![20] Can it be believed?’ he exclaimed. ‘’Tis magic, an’ I don’t half like it. An’ I don’t think the dear little bird do nuther,’ looking down at the lark, who was trailing its wings on the ground in that distressful way birds have when their wee nestlings are in danger. ‘Give it back its own, that’s a dear little maid.’
‘I can’t,’ said Ninnie-Dinnie. ‘Mammie Trebisken can only do that; and I don’t think she will want to, for the song in the Pail will make all her heart sing.’
She covered the Pail with her pinafore as she spoke, and the little lark disappeared into a brake of flaming gorse.
There was no time to bandy words, Tom told himself, as he was late for his work, and he left the child to go back to their cottage without any more protesting. But he did not feel very comfortable as he strode on his way to the mine.
It was late in the morning when Ninnie-Dinnie got home, and Joan was beginning to be troubled at her long absence when she came in.
‘Have ’ee brought the lark’s music along with ’ee?’ she asked, as the child set the Pail on the red-painted dresser.
‘Yes,’ said Ninnie-Dinnie; ‘and at sundown you will hear it.’