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Updated: June 3, 2025
While all this cackling was going on, the Phoenix maintained a stiff silence. At last he stroked his beak with a claw. "Hush!" said the second Tufter, "we shall hear something now." And surely the Phoenix did speak. "Children, Isal must know of this. We took her away on the Old Brown Coat. My great-great-great grandfather made the coat. He was called Phoenix the Tailor."
If it had not been for us, Isal might still have been only a woodman's daughter and not a Queen at all!" Here the Phoenix spoke, but with a very muffled voice; his age prevented him from talking very loud or much at a time; he was apt to repeat himself, too, sometimes, and to ramble in his remarks.
But Isal could not tell that they said anything. "How these geese do cackle," said she, as she stroked the Phoenix, who did not dislike it, though he thought her rather forward, and bade Rosedrop bring her some berries. Rosedrop brought them to Isal, who thought she was the prettiest of all, and not at all like a goose.
"We must put this right," said he at last; but he did not say how; no doubt he knew, though, he looked so wise. "Suppose we carry the coat back to the Prince; he will never know that Isal wore it," suggested the third of the Tufters who had spoken before. "Little Tufters should be seen, not heard," said the Phoenix; "I did not ask your advice."
"Here is a coat!" said Isal. "I wonder where it could have come from!" She took it off the bough, which drifted away as she let it go, and held up the coat to look at it. "And what a strange looking coat it is!" she said. "It must be very old; it is very carefully mended too. Some poor person must have owned it; but it doesn't belong to anyone I know. I'll see if it fits me."
Again did Rosedrop fly through the window, and hovering over the bed, unknown to the Prince give her message to the sleeping Isal.
It was very hard for the Phoenix to avoid speaking of this whenever the Old Brown Coat was mentioned, and he continued for some time to wander upon the subject, till they all thought he was through, and the Tufter, who had once been rash asked: "And who shall tell Isal?" The Phoenix was not really through, though.
Isal was still asleep, but the morning light would soon wake her. "Shall I give her a worm?" said the Tufter who had spoken so rashly before. "Nonsense!" said the Phoenix sharply. "Little girls don't eat worms! Be more discreet. But you may go and find some berries." So he went off for them and Rosedrop with him. Isal was awake when they came back, and very much astonished at everything about her.
They laid Isal on the Old Brown Coat upon the grass, and then the Phoenix bade the Tufters fly away a few miles into the woods and wait his coming. Rosedrop, however, he bade stay a while, when she tapped with her beak upon the window of the Prince's chamber, and then flew away to join her brothers.
With the kiss Isal awoke, and when she saw leaning over her so grand a looking person, she was more wonderstruck than ever before. "Surely he kissed me!" she murmured. Here the Phoenix broke in with a remark. "O Prince," said he, "I am the Phoenix. For nearly five hundred years I have lived and guarded the Old Brown Coat.
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