He had a pen of half-a-dozen cockerels, the result of the hatching of a clutch of eggs laid by a feathered princess of the blood royal; and as he watched them through their infancy it was with high hopes of winning prizes--silver cups and vases, at all the crack poultry shows. And how he tended and pampered his pets, watching them through the various stages passed by this kind of fowl--one can hardly say feathered fowl in the earlier stages of their existence, for through their early boyhood, so to speak, they run about in a raw unclad condition that is pitiful to see, for they are almost "birds of a feather" in the Dundreary idea of the singularity of plumage; and it is not until they have arrived pretty well at full growth that they assume the heavy massive plumage that makes their skeleton lanky forms look so huge. These six young Brahmas masculine grew and throve in their pen, innocent, happy, and at peace, till one morning their owner gazed upon them in pride, for they were all that a Brahma fancier could wish to see--small of comb, heavy of hackle, tail slightly developed, broad in the beam, short-legged, and without a trace of vulture hock. "First prize for one of them," said the owner, and after feeding them he went to town, and came back to find his hopes ruined, his cockerels six panting, ragged, bleeding wrecks, squatting about in the pen, half dead, too much exhausted to spur and peck again. For there had been battle royal in that pen, the young birds engaging in a furious melee. For what reason? Because, as good old Doctor Watts said, "It is their nature to." They did not know it till that morning, but there was the great passion in each one's breast, waiting to be evoked, and transform them from pacific pecking and scratching birds into perfect demons of discord. There was wire netting spread all over the top of their carefully sanded pen, and till then they had never seen others of their kind. It was their world, and as far as they knew there was neither fowl nor chicken save themselves. The memory of the mother beneath whose plumage they had nestled had passed away, for the gallinaceous brain cavity is small. That morning, a stray, pert-looking, elegantly spangled, golden Hambro' pullet appeared upon the wall, looked down for a moment on the pen of full-grown, innocent young Brahmas, uttered the monosyllables "Took, took!" and flew away. For a brief space, the long necks of the cockerels were strained in the direction where that vision of loveliness had appeared for a brief instant; the fire of jealous love blazed out, and they turned and fought almost to the death. It would have been quite, had there been strength. The owner of these six cripples did not take a prize. So at Northwood, women, save as sister or friend, had been non-existent to Pierce Leigh. Now the desire to rend his human brother was upon him strong.