At the bottom sat the little fairy, without her wand, weeping and beating her hands on the glass.
The showman was so proud he grew red in the face, and ran shouting up and down the plank, shaking and turning the bottle upside down now and then, so as to make the cabined fairy use her wings, and buzz like a fly against the glass.
The Jackdaw waggled unsteadily at his perch on the man's shoulder. "Look at him!" laughed someone in the crowd, "he's going to steal his master's scarf-pin."
"Ho, ho, ho!" shouted the showman. "See this bird now! See the marvellous mongrel nature of the beast! Who tells me he's only a nightingale painted black?"
The people laughed the more at that, for there was a fellow in the crowd looking sheepish. The Jackdaw had drawn out the scarf-pin, and held it gravely in its beak, looking sideways with cunning eyes. He was wishing hard. All the crowd laughed again.
Suddenly the showman's hand gave a jerk, the bottle slipped from his hold and fell, shivering itself upon the ground.
There was a buzz of wings—the fairy had escaped.
"The beautiful is coming true," thought the Jackdaw, as he yielded to the fairy her wand, and found, suddenly, that his wings were not clipped after all.
"What more can I do for you?" asked the fairy, as they flew away together. "You gave me back my wand; I have given you back your wings."
"I will not ask anything," said the little Jackdaw; "what God intends will come true."