gone from him, and in the hands of strangers; the pigeons, for which the
Dovecot had always been famous, became the business and the pleasure of
his life. But of late years his stock had dwindled, and he rarely went
to pigeon-matches or competed in shows and races. A more miserable fancy
rivalled his interest in pigeon fancying. His new hobby was hoarding;
and money that, a few years back, he would have freely spent to improve
his breed of Tumblers or back his Homing Birds he now added with
stealthy pleasure to the store behind the secret panel of a fine old oak
bedstead that had belonged to the Darwyn who owned Dovecot when the
sixteenth century was at its latter end. In this bedstead Daddy slept
lightly of late, as old men will, and he had horrid dreams, which old
men need not have. The queer faces carved on the panels (one of which
hid the money hole) used to frighten him when he was a child. They did
not frighten him now by their grotesque ugliness, but when he looked at
them, _and knew which was which_, he dreaded the dying out of
twilight into dark, and dreamed of aged men living alone, who had been
murdered for their savings. These growing fears had had no small share
in deciding him to try Jack March; and to see the lad growing stronger,
nimbler, and more devoted to his master's interests day by day, was a
nightly comfort to the poor old hoarder in the bed-head.

As to his keen sense of Jack's industry and carefulness, it was part of
the incompleteness of Daddy Darwin's nature, and the ill-luck of his
career, that he had a sensitive perception of order and beauty, and a
shrewd observation of ways of living and qualities of character, and yet
had allowed his early troubles to blight him so completely that he never
put forth an effort to rise above the ruin, of which he was at least as
conscious as his neighbors.