12 THE MAGIC OAK TREE

As soon as the little boy had said these
words, the crow flapped his wings three
times, and cawed with delight, after which
he composed himself again and thus con-
tinued :

‘ The oak is a fair and a comely tree,
But the bat is a loathsome bird,
And never a note of melody
From his voiceless mouth is heard.

The oak is a fair and a comely tree,
But the weasel’s a noxious beast,

The like of the wretch you can scarcely see
In the North, South, West or East.

The oak is a fair and a comely tree,
But the adder’s a creeping brute,
And ne'er with the forest it well can be
While the wretch lies coiled by the root.
But blessing shall fall on that man or boy
Who shall adder and weasel and bat destroy !'

As the crow spoke, the thought crossed
little Hurly-Burly’s mind that it would be
capital fun to kill a weasel and an adder,
to say nothing of a bat, about which he did
not care so much; the other two creatures
seemed to be the natural enemies of a boy,
and he felt that he should have no objection
to throwing the bat in, if he was to get a
blessing for doing so. All this, however,