But the starlings don’t seem to be the least bit worried by the cold shoulder of the more exclusive residents; they gabble and bawl the whole day long, from the top of the roof, while the one who has managed to secure the apex of the weathercock is positively insulting. And the moment we turn into the little white gate, they begin. “See who’s down there? I say, everybody, look! There’s that wretched white dog again! Remember what a perfect nuisance he was last August, when we’d just got the youngsters out of the nest? We were afraid every moment lest he would start to climb the trees like their old cat used to. Hi! there, you on the barn-roof! Have you heard the news?” Shriek, shriek! chatter, chatter, chatter! So they go on for hours at a time. Then policeman-robin arrives. “What’s all this noise about?” he demands, from the post of the gate leading into the upper orchard. “Oh, good gracious! it’s that horrid white dog again! Nearly shoved his nose right into our nest in the woodruff bank last year! Chit! chit! chit! But don’t you worry, my dear” (this to the lady he has just married); “I’ll drive him away; you can trust to me,” and he flicks his conceited little tail, and flies to the top of a tree stump near by, still calling out his “Chit! chit! chit!” in severe reprimand. Next the blackbird, hunting for a little fresh meat among the grey, mossed-over stones that edge the garden beds, raises his head and cranes his neck above the overhanging heart’s-ease trails, and the foliage of the pinks, to see what the commotion is all about. “I say, Martha!” (to the demure body in brown, who has been meekly tracking along behind him), “there’s that terror of a dog again! Recollect when he was here last year? Never a chance to enjoy a snail in peace; before you’d given the shell more than one tap on the stone, down he’d rush. Here he comes now! Slip along quick to the laurels. I say, that was a near shave! Chut! chut! chut! Go away! What business have you to come here disturbing respectable old inhabitants like us?” And so the hubbub continues, while the small white dog with the brown ears trots in a business-like manner all over the place, making sure that every corner-stone, and bush, and gate-post is just where he left it last time. And having ascertained that the universe is still intact, he sets off to a particular spot in the lower orchard, sniffs about till he finds the identical tuft of grass he is searching for; whereupon he eats, and eats, at the long green blades, much in the same way as we fall on the young lettuces, or the black currants, or whatever else may be in season when we come down. Though why this particular tuft of grass should be the only one he selects out of the acres and acres at his disposal, is always a mystery to us. Yet he never forgets it; straight for that small patch in the middle of the big orchard he makes, once he has done his tour of inspection round the estate. * * * * *