“Yes, yes, my boy, I know her,” he answered; “and she’s not grown blunt yet. Well, she it was that decided that, after waiting a week to see if the Jackdaw would come poking about the stable or not, she should bring Mag to me there, if all went well, and see the pony too; and in the meantime she was to go twice a day to our cottage and feed him. And when she had made the hole in the hedge, I jumped through, and never minded a prick or two I got—meaning in my conscience, you know—from the brambles. “All did go well; Miss Pringle—I really don’t like calling her the Jackdaw now she’s dead and gone—soon found I was handy, and as she disliked the smell of stables, she gave up pecking round there after the first day or two. So Nelly brought round Mag by the back way through the fields, and I hung up his cage in the hayloft, by the window looking away from the house and garden. “And now my story really begins,” he went on; “and I’d be glad if you’d give me a flick with the whip now and again, for I’m as bad as my old mare at a jog-trot. “I settled down into my place with a good heart, and soon got fond of the pony. Mag, up in the hayloft, escaped Miss Pringle’s notice, and though the cook found him out, she was a good-natured body and held her tongue. Nelly paid me many visits, stealing round to my stable by the fields; and she made the gap in our hedge so much bigger that once, in the Jackdaw’s absence, both she and Mag had a ride on the pony in the paddock. “Mag grew to be nearly a year old, and the cleverest bird you ever saw; I had hard work to keep him in his wicker cage, for he was always pulling away at the door-fastening with his bill. One warm morning in spring I was sent for to take Miss Pringle’s orders, and found her sitting at her desk in her parlour, with the window open, and the garden scents coming into the room. I stood on the matting as usual while she wrote a note. She then gave it to me, and told me to take it to a village three miles away, but first to get the carriage ready, as she was going for a drive, and should be away all the morning. She was very gracious, and less tight about the lips than usual, I fancied. “‘If I am not back after your dinner, John,’ she said, ‘come and tidy up this bed under the window, for I shall have to sow my annuals soon.’