"He owns Darwin's Dovecot."

"And how i' t' name o' all things did that come about'!"

"Why, I'll tell thee. It was i' this fashion."

* * * * *

Not without reason does the wary writer put gossip in the mouths of
gaffers rather than of gammers. Male gossips love scandal as dearly as
female gossips do, and they bring to it the stronger relish and energies
of their sex. But these were country gaffers, whose speech--like
shadows--grows lengthy in the leisurely hours of eventide. The gentle
reader shall have the tale in plain narration.

NOTE--It will be plain to the reader that the birds here described are
Rooks (_corvus frugilegus_). I have allowed myself to speak of them
by their generic or family name of Crow, this being a common country
practice. The genus _corvus_, or _Crow_, includes the Raven,
the Carrion Crow, the Hooded Crow, the Jackdaw, and the Rook.



SCENE I.


One Saturday night (some eighteen years earlier than the date of this
gaffer-gossiping) the parson's daughter sat in her own room before the
open drawer of a bandy-legged black oak table, _balancing her