"Why, no, Joe," he answered slowly. "You see, the daw was with the rooks scratchin' about in a plowed field near the ellums, and it might have come from anywhere. There's no sayin'. But there's one thing, Joe, them jackdaws is all for old castles and church steeples and such-like. If your father wrote that and tied it to the jackdaw's tail--as is likely--he will be in some o' them places--up a steeple of a church, most like; nobody goes there. Thank 'ee, no, Joe. I'd do more than that for Mr. Yarrow, if only I knew how. But I'll keep a bright look-out for daws with extra tail feathers. If any come along, Peter Kemp'll spend a cartridge or two on them that old Sir Eddard 'll never miss." I hardly knew how to break the tidings to my mother, or whether to tell her Peter's news at all or not. But, luckily, she was interested in some tale that Harriet was telling. She was laughing, too, which somehow grated on me. I can't tell why, for I now had good reason to know that my father was alive and apparently, in no immediate danger. Well, I slipped out, and went through the fields into the woods behind Mr. Mustard's school. I knew that Elsie would soon be coming, and if only she were minded to help, she had the levellest head of anybody; and I would rather take her advice than that of any minister in the place--especially after hooking down the Hayfork Parson like a smoked ham off the wall, a thing which lessens your respect for the clergy, if indulged in. Well, I saw her coming, and I stood right in the way, just beyond the turn, well out of sight of old Mustard, for I knew he would be all fixed and ready to give Elsie her morning lesson. But the funny thing was that she didn't seem to see me at all, and would have passed by, reading out of a book, like a train that doesn't stop at a station. But I stood right slam in front, and taking the book--"snatching it rudely," she said afterwards--I held out the little unrolled scrap which Peter the gamekeeper had fetched in his jackdaw's quill. I had the quill, too, in my jacket pocket, in case she should want to see that. "There," I said, "be all the 'outs' with me you like afterwards--I can't help girls' tempers--but if you want to help save my father, you read that." And I believe, just because I took her sharp like that without whining to be forgiven and twaddle of that kind, her hand closed on the paper, and she read it. "Where did you get this?" she asked just as I had done myself from Peter Kemp. So I told her all about it--everything there was to tell, and smartly, too. For I knew she was very late; we should have old Mustard's weasely muzzle snowking down the lane after us. This was no grandfather's clock, puss-in-the-corner game, this.