"Maester Shaw! you'll not let them chaps get off? Daddy's mazelin' wi'
trouble, sir, but I reckon you'll see to it."

"If it costs t' worth of the pigeons ten times over, I'll see to it, my
lad," was Master Shaw's reply. And the parish constable rose even to a
vein of satire as he avenged himself of the man who had slighted his
office. "Settle it out of court? Aye! I dare say. And send t' same chaps
to fetch 'em away again t' night after. Nay--bear a hand with this
hamper, Maester Shaw, if you please--if it's all t' same to you, Mr.
Proprietor, I think we shall have to trouble you to step up to t' Town
Hall by-and-by, and see if we can't get shut of them mistaking friends
o' yours for three months any way."

If that day was a trying one to Daddy Darwin the night that followed it
was far worse. The thieves were known to the police, and the case was
down to come on at the Town Hall the following morning; but meanwhile
the constable thought fit to keep the pigeons under his own charge in
the village lock-up. Jack refused to be parted from his birds, and
remained with them, leaving Daddy Darwin alone in the Dovecot. He dared
not go to bed, and it was not a pleasant night that he spent, dozing
with weariness, and starting up with fright, in an arm-chair facing the
money-hole.

Some things that he had been nervous about he got quite used to,
however. He bore himself with sufficient dignity in the publicity of the
Town Hall, where a great sensation was created by the pigeons being let
loose without, and coming to Jack's call. Some of them fed from the
boy's lips, and he was the hero of the hour, to Daddy Darwin's delight.