The melody, which at first came from the depths of the Pail, or the turfy ground, it was hard to say which, rose higher and higher, until it sounded like a bird singing its heart out in the soft azure of an evening sky.
Joan never knew how long she listened to that fetterless song; she only knew she awoke to the fact that the sky's little songster, the Pail, or whatever it was, had stopped singing, that daylight was leaving the moor, and that a small dark shadow was slowly stealing across her window.
'Why, it is a little bird, surely,' she said, speaking to the tiny maid at her feet. 'The light of our fire have attracted it from its sleeping-place--poor little thing!'
'P'r'aps it is the little lark come for its music and its song,' suggested Ninnie-Dinnie, fixing her gaze on the bird, which was now fluttering against the panes and uttering a tiny note of distress.
'I never thought of that,' said Joan. 'I hope it haven't. I couldn't give it back its song and its music for the world!'
As she was speaking, the Pail on the dresser was again agitated, and out of it rushed another entrancing melody, until all the cottage was full of music, and Joan said it was raining down upon her head from the oaken beams. But through the melody could be distinctly heard a little voice, which was the lark's voice:
'Give me back my music! Give me back my song!'
'My Aunt Betsy!' cried Joan. 'Whoever heard of a bird talking before?'
'Are you going to give the little lark what it wants?' asked Ninnie-Dinnie, watching the bird, which was still fluttering against the bottle-green pane.
'No!' said Joan decidedly. 'I don't think I ought. It do make my heart young an' happy again.'
'I was hoping you would like to give back the lark its music and its song,' said Ninnie-Dinnie.
'Whatever for, cheeld-vean?' [32] Joan asked.
'Because,' answered the child, 'I have been wondering what the lark's little mate will do if he hasn't his song to sing to her now she is sitting on her pretty eggs out on the grass.'
'Why, make another song, of course, you foolish little knaw-nothing!' cried Joan, laying her pain-twisted fingers on the child's elfin locks.
'It has no music to make a song with; it gave it all to me to take home to my dear Mammie Trebisken,' said the little maid.