Mrs. Feathertop gave only one shriek and fainted dead away, and was carried home on a cabbage-leaf; and Mr. Gray Cock was sent for, where he was waiting on Mrs. Red Comb through the squash-vines.
“It’s a serious time in your family, sir,” said Goody Kertarkut, “and you ought to be at home supporting your wife. Send for Dr. Peppercorn without delay.”
Now as the case was a very dreadful one, Dr. Peppercorn called a council from the barn-yard of the squire, two miles off, and a brisk young Dr. Partlett appeared, in a fine suit of brown and gold, with tail-feathers like meteors. A fine young fellow he was, lately from Paris, with all the modern scientific improvements fresh in his head.
When he had listened to the whole story, he clapped his spur into the ground, and leaning back laughed so loudly that all the cocks in the neighbourhood crowed.
Mrs. Feathertop rose up out of her swoon, and Mr. Gray Cock was greatly enraged.
“What do you mean, sir, by such behaviour in the house of mourning?”
“My dear sir, pardon me; but there is no occasion for mourning. My dear madam, let me congratulate you. There is no harm done. The simple matter is, dear madam, you have been under a hallucination all along. The neighbourhood and my learned friend the doctor have all made a mistake in thinking that these children of yours were hens at all. They are ducks, ma’am, evidently ducks, and very finely-formed ducks I daresay.”
At this moment a quack was heard, and at a distance the whole tribe were seen coming waddling home, their feathers gleaming in green and gold, and they themselves in high good spirits.
“Such a splendid day as we have had!” they all cried in a breath. “And we know now how to get our own living; we can take care of ourselves in future, so you need have no further trouble with us.”