reputation; he was always the man selected for trapping any evil beast
or bird that might be worrying us; and when the cherries were
beginning to show ruddy complexions in the sunshine, and the starlings
and blackbirds were becoming troublesome, armed with an old
muzzle-loader of mine, he made incessant warfare against them, and his
gun could be heard as early as five o'clock in the morning, while the
shots would often come pattering down harmlessly on my greenhouse.
There came a time when some thieving carrion crows were robbing my
half-tame wild duck's nests of their eggs, and Jarge was, of course,
detailed to tackle them. Weeks elapsed without any result; the
depredations continued, and the men began to chaff him; finally Bell
"put the lid on," as people say nowadays, by the following sally: "Ah,
Jarge, if ever thee catches a craw 'twill be one as was hatched from
an addled egg!"

For weeks before harvest Jarge patrolled my wheatfields, crowds of
sparrows rising and dispersing for a time after every shot, only, I
fear, to foregather again very soon on another field, perhaps half a
mile distant. No doubt he sent some to my neighbours in return for
those which they sent to me.

Jarge was an instance of superior descent; his surname was that of an
ancient and prominent county family in former days; he carried himself
with dignity and was generally respected; he possessed the power of
very minute observation, and was of all others the man to find coins
or other small leavings of Roman and former occupiers of my land. His
eldest daughter was a charming girl, and, when Jarge became a widower,
she made a most efficient mistress of his household. She showed, too,
quite unmistakably her descent from distinguished ancestry. Tall,
clear-complexioned, graceful, dignified, and rather serious, but with