‘Pincher was a wise dog to send you to me. But, let me tell you, you have asked me to do an almost impossible thing. Yet, fortunately for those poor shut-up little maids, it is not quite impossible; but it will depend on yourself, whether your love and pity for your little friends is strong enough to do all that is required of you.’
‘I’ll do anything if I can only get wings to fly with, and see Monday, Tuesday, and the others again,’ broke in Betty, with all a child’s eagerness.
‘Alas! the will that is strong and eager to do is often weakened by the flesh that is frail,’ said the Wise Woman, with a shake of her head; ‘but the question now is, Are you willing to live with me, an old woman, in this out-of-the-way place, for a year and a day, if ’tis required, and do all I bid you willingly, without asking a single question?’
‘A year and a day is a long time to be away from home,’ said Betty honestly. ‘Still, I am willing to stay with you all that time and do your bidding if my mother will let me.’
‘That is well!’ cried the Wise Woman. ‘Now go back to Padstow Town and get your mother’s consent, and return to me to-morrow about this time.’
Betty’s mother was very glad to let her little girl go and live with the Wise Woman, for she was very poor, and had twelve children.
The next day, when Betty was returning to Bogee Down, which she did by the same road as before, with her clothes done up in a bundle under her arm, who should she see, leaning over a gate, at a place called Uncle Kit’s Corner, but the old Witch o’ the Well, smoking her pipe!
‘Whither away, my little dear?’ cried the witch, as the child drew near the gate.
‘To get a pair of wings to fly up your stairs to see Monday and the others,’ answered Betty promptly.
‘Ha! ha! That’s too funny!’ cried the witch. ‘As well try to cut a piece from the blue of yon sky to make yourself a gown as to get wings to fly up my stairs.’ And she laughed and laughed until she nearly choked herself.