The first thrush that Betty saw—and he was a master singer and made the wood ring—was on the uppermost branch of a horse-chestnut just beginning to bud, and when he had finished his entrancing song, she lifted up her voice and said:
‘Dear little grey thrush, please give me one of your feathers, for Love’s sake.’
She wondered as she begged if the bird would understand her language; but he did quite well, and, what she thought was still more wonderful, she understood his!
‘I will give you a feather gladly,’ he piped in his own delicious thrush way. ‘It is the beautiful spring-time, and the thrushes’ courting-time; and because you beg a feather for Love’s sake, I will pluck one that lies over my heart.’ And the dear little bird did so, and flung it down into Betty’s outstretched hands; and when she had caught it, he burst out into exquisite melody, and he was still singing, as she went down the wood lovely with budding trees.
From every thrush she saw she asked a feather for Love’s sake, and she was not refused once, and by the time she had gone the length of the wood her apron was full of thrushes’ feathers, plucked from breast and wing, tail and back!
‘Were the song-thrushes willing to give their feathers?’ asked the Wise Woman when Betty got back to the hut.
‘Ever so willing!’ cried the little maid, opening her apron to show what a lot she had got.
‘It is more than enough,’ she said. ‘Put them into the box where the stone lay.’
The following morning when the child awoke there was a mournful sound coming up from the sea, which they could command from the door of the hut, and the Wise Woman said it was a sign that a great storm was being brewed by the Master of the Winds, and that before the day was over he would send the great North-Easter across the land.
‘I am sorry,’ she said, ‘as it will hinder our work, and perhaps I shall die of the cold before we can help you to fly.’