“O Master Owl, I can only thank you with all my heart for the hospitality and shelter which you have given me this night.  I was beaten by the storm, and you took me in.  I was hungry, and you gave me your best to eat.  I cannot flatter nor make pretty speeches like the Bat.  I never learned such manners.  But I thank you.”

“What!” cried the Bat, pretending to be shocked.  “Is that all you have to say to our obliging host?  Is he not the wisest, bravest, most gallant and generous of gentlemen?  Have you no praise for his noble character as well as for his goodness to us?  I am ashamed of you!  You do not deserve such hospitality.  You do not deserve this shelter.”

The Dove remained silent.  Like Cordelia in the play, she could not speak untruths even for her own happiness.

“Truly, you are an unamiable guest,” snarled the Owl, his yellow eyes growing keen and fierce with anger and mortified pride.  “You are an ungrateful bird, Miss, and the Bat is right.  You do not deserve this generous hospitality which I have offered, this goodly shelter which you asked.  Away with you!  Leave my dwelling!  Pack off into the storm and see whether or not your silence will soothe the rain and the wind.  Be off, I say!”

“Yes, away with her!” echoed the Bat, flapping his leathery wings.  And the two heartless creatures fell upon the poor little Dove and drove her out into the dark and stormy night.

Poor little Dove!  All night she was tossed and beaten about shelterless in the storm, because she had been too truthful to flatter the vain old Owl.  But when the bright morning dawned, draggled and weary as she was, she flew to the court of King Eagle and told him all her trouble.  Great was the indignation of that noble bird.

“For his flattery and his cruelty let the Bat never presume to fly abroad until the sun goes down,” he cried.  “As for the Owl, I have already doomed him to this punishment for his treatment of the Wren.  But henceforth let no bird have anything to do with either of them, the Bat or the Owl.  Let them be outcasts and night-prowlers, enemies to be attacked and punished if they appear among us, to be avoided by all in their loneliness.  Flattery and inhospitality, deceit and cruelty,—­what are more hideous than these?  Let them cover themselves in darkness and shun the happy light of day.  As for you, little Dove, let this be a lesson to you to shun the company of flatterers, who are sure to get you into trouble.  But you shall always be loved for your simplicity and truth.  And as a token of our affection your name shall be used by poets as long as the world shall last to rhyme with love.”

The words of the wise King Eagle are true to this day.  So now you know why a great many poems came to be written in which the rhymes dove and love have not seemed to make any particular sense.

THE FOWLS ON PILGRIMAGE