"We might go to the village, mightn't we, and spend my pennies? Dyson's got his trumpet, so there's nothing to save for, and I should like to spend them." "Very well: where shall I find you?" "I shall be feeding my jackdaw, or working in my garden; or, perhaps," after a moment's reflection, "I might be sitting at the top of the apple tree, or running along the kitchen garden wall. But if you don't find me in any of those places, look in the hen-house. I might be getting an egg there for Miles' tea." "But isn't the hen-house kept locked?" "Oh, yes, but that doesn't matter a bit. I always squeeze myself through the hen's little trap door." "You don't expect me to do the same, I hope?" Humphrey's sense of the ridiculous was tickled by the idea of his father's tall form struggling through the little hole of a few inches wide; and his merry laugh echoed through the room. "What fun it would be!" he exclaimed, "you'd stick in the middle, and not be able to get in or out. How you would kick!" Little Miles laughed till he coughed, and Sir Everard was obliged to dismiss Humphrey to the garden. Humphrey was not engaged in any of the employments he had mentioned when his father joined him an hour later. He was standing gazing thoughtfully at the lame jackdaw hopping about on his wooden leg. "What a funny boy you are," said his father, laying a hand on his shoulder. "I do believe you care more for that ugly old jackdaw than for anything else that you have. He always seems to me the most uninteresting of creatures and I'm sure he is very ungrateful, for the kinder you are to him the crosser he gets." "Yes, he's very cross, poor old fellow!" said Humphrey. "Look!" holding out his hand, which bore unmistakable evidence of a bird's beak, "how he's pecked me. He always does whenever I feed him." "I should almost be inclined not to feed him then." "I couldn't let him starve, you know. Besides, I don't wonder he's cross. It's enough to make any one angry to be always hopping about in one little place, instead of having the whole world to fly about in. And if it wasn't for me," he added, half to himself, "he would be flying about now." Sir Everard did not catch the last words, but the boy's face reminded him that he had touched on a painful subject, and he hastened to change it by proposing they should start for the village. Humphrey brightened up directly, and was soon talking as gaily as usual. The painfulness of the subject consisted in this. One day, Humphrey and Miles were amusing themselves in their gardens, when the jackdaw, then young and active, came flying past. Humphrey without the slightest idea of touching it, flung a stone at it, exclaiming, "Get away, old fellow!" But so unerring was his aim, that the stone struck the bird on the wing, and brought it struggling and fluttering to the ground.