At that some of the trouble that was on Eean’s face seemed to leave it. He cried out, “O Bird-of-Gold, tell the King the story of your adventures from the beginning. Bethink thee, Bird-of-Gold, of the terrible things you have gone through and speak to the King and the lords of them. This King is very generous, and you may win our lives from him.” The girl who was called Bird-of-Gold turned to the King her face that seemed to him to be like the face of a slave and a victorious warrior. Her hands were bound before her and her black hair fell over her breast. Like one who was ever ready in deed and word, as soon as King Manus made a gesture, she began: [Illustration] PART II THE STORY OF BIRD-OF-GOLD WHO WAS THE BRAMBLE GATHERER’S DAUGHTER I. HOW THE BRAMBLE GATHERER’S DAUGHTER WENT TOWARD HER FORTUNE I am called Bird-of-Gold (said the girl, beginning her story), but that name did not belong to me until I was a girl grown. Before that I had no name. In the city where I was born and where I lived I was known as “The bramble gatherer’s child.” My father was the poorest of all the men of that town. He gathered brambles and thorns in the wilderness and brought them in a bundle to the hut where we lived. Then, while he was gathering another bundle on another day, I would go through the town selling the brambles and thorns for stuff for the people’s fires. My mother I never knew. I grew up with my father, and we two had even less than the sparrows. I had no playmate nor no friend, and what I got for the thorns and brambles I sold brought us but little to eat. One day as I passed along the street of the city it came into my mind that I was grown to be a girl. The thought that I should go from the city grew in me from that time. My father would miss me, but he would flourish the better if there was one, and not two, to eat the scanty meal that the price of the brambles and thorns gained for us. I got for myself the cap and jacket of a boy. Then one morning when my father had gone from the hut and had turned his face to the wilderness and his back to the city, I went out of the door and turned to the wilderness also. I took a direction that would bring me far from where my father had gone. I had dressed myself as a boy, and my thought was that I would come upon a merchant who would let me do service for him, and who, perhaps, would take me on a voyage. And I thought that I might win some fortune for myself, and that then I could return and take my father out of toil and hardship. I came to the wilderness and I went through it. When the sun was halfway in the heavens I came to where there was a road. There was a pillar before me and that pillar had writing upon it. I read what was written there. The words were: _They who take the road to the right will come to their fortune at last, and they who take the road to the left will be ever as they have been._ When I read that writing I took the road that was to my right.