"By virtue of the three feathers from over my true love's heart may the shutters never cease banging till morning, and may Mr. Butler's hands be busy trying to shut them."
And so it happened.
Mr. Butler shut the shutters, but—bru-u-u! there they were hanging open again. Then he shut them once more, and this time they hit him on the face as they flew open. Yet he couldn't stop; he had to go on. So there he was the whole livelong night. Such a cursing, and banging, and swearing, and shutting, never was, until dawn came, and, too tired to be really angry, he crept back to his bed, resolving that come what might he would not tell what had happened to him and thus get the laugh on him. So he kept his own counsel, and the girl kept the seventy pounds, and laughed in her sleeve at her would-be lover.
Now after a time the coachman, a spruce middle-aged man, who had long wanted to marry the clever, pretty laundry-maid, going to the pump to get water for his horses overheard her giving orders to the three feathers, and peeping through the keyhole as the butler had done, saw her sitting at her ease in a chair while the clothes, all washed and ironed and mangled, came flying to the table.
So, just as the butler had done, he went to the girl and said, "I have you now, my pretty. Don't dare to turn up your nose at me, for if you do I'll tell mistress you are a witch."
Then the girl said quite calmly, "I look on none who has no money."
"If that is all," replied the coachman, "I have forty pounds laid by with master. That I'll bring and ask for payment to-morrow night."
So when the night came the girl held out her apron for the money, and as she was going up the stairs she stopped suddenly and said, "Goody me! I've left my clothes on the line. Stop a bit till I fetch them in."
Now the coachman was really a very polite fellow, so he said at once:
"Let me go. It is a cold, windy night and you'll be catching your death."