"He don't come from hereabouts. And yet he do come from hereabouts, as one may say. Look ye here. He come from t' wukhus. That's the short and the long of it." "_The workhouse!_" "Aye." Stupefaction. The crows chattering wildly overhead. "And he owns Darwin's Dovecot?" "He owns Darwin's Dovecot." "And how i' t' name o' all things did that come about'!" "Why, I'll tell thee. It was i' this fashion." * * * * * Not without reason does the wary writer put gossip in the mouths of gaffers rather than of gammers. Male gossips love scandal as dearly as female gossips do, and they bring to it the stronger relish and energies of their sex. But these were country gaffers, whose speech--like shadows--grows lengthy in the leisurely hours of eventide. The gentle reader shall have the tale in plain narration. NOTE--It will be plain to the reader that the birds here described are Rooks (_corvus frugilegus_). I have allowed myself to speak of them by their generic or family name of Crow, this being a common country practice. The genus _corvus_, or _Crow_, includes the Raven, the Carrion Crow, the Hooded Crow, the Jackdaw, and the Rook. SCENE I. One Saturday night (some eighteen years earlier than the date of this gaffer-gossiping) the parson's daughter sat in her own room before the open drawer of a bandy-legged black oak table, _balancing her bags_. The bags were money-bags, and the matter shall be made clear at once. In this parish, as in others, progress and the multiplication of weapons with which civilization and the powers of goodness push their conquests over brutality and the powers of evil, had added to the original duties of the parish priest, a multifarious and all but impracticable variety of offices; which, in ordinary and late conditions, would have been performed by several more or less salaried clerks, bankers, accountants, secretaries, librarians, club-committees, teachers, lecturers, discount for ready-money dealers in clothing, boots, blankets, and coal, domestic-servant agencies, caterers for the public amusement, and preservers of the public peace. The country parson (no less than statesmen and princes, than men of science and of letters) is responsible for a great deal of his work that is really done by the help-mate--woman. This explains why five out of the young lady's moneybags bore the following inscriptions in marking-ink: "Savings' bank," "Clothing club," "Library," "Magazines and hymn-books," "Three-halfpenny club"--and only three bore reference to private funds, as--"House-money"--"Allowance "--"Charity."