“Ah, ye blackguards,” he cried, “at it already, are ye? I’ll be bound there are a dozen or two of ye somewhere or another on the premises. You see, Sir, ’tis their nater, when they’ve had it all their own way so long, and no one to look after ’em, a year come next June. They take it as the garden belongs to them; they’re like rats in a stack-yard, and you won’t have a thing to call your own by summer. But don’t you take on, Sir,” he went on, seeing the Poet’s visage lengthening; “we’ll nip ’em in the bud in no time. There’s my grandson Dan, a wonderful smart lad to find nests—you give him a sixpence, Sir, or what you please, and he’ll have every nest in the garden in an hour or two. Take it in time, Sir, as the doctor says to my wife when her rheumatics is a coming on.” Mr. Bates chucked the unfinished nest on to a heap of weeds, thrust in his arm again, and began a fresh search. The Poet’s face grew dark: he could hardly find his voice. “Bates,” he said at last, “stop that. You’ve taken one nest already, and if you or your grandson take another here, I’ll send you straight about your business. Do you think I took this garden to rob my blackbirds of their nests?” “Lord save us,” cried Joseph, suddenly bewildered by this vehemence, “do I rightly understand you, Sir?” “You needn’t understand me, if you can’t do so,” said the Poet, feeling a great dislike and dread for this terrible old man and his barbarian grandson; “but I mean to keep my blackbirds, so if you take another nest I’ll find another man.” Joseph admitted to his wife afterwards that he was “clean took aback by this queer gentleman from London;” but, recovering himself quickly, he stuck his spade into the ground to lean upon, and began a further discourse. “Begging your pardon, Sir, if I’ve in any ways offended you; but may be you ben’t quite accustomed to our country ways. You see, Sir, a garden’s a garden down our way: we grows fruit and vegetables in it for to eat. If the birds was to be master here, ’twouldn’t be no mortal manner of use our growing of ’em. Now I’ve heard tell as there’s gardens in London with nothing but wild animals in ’em, and maybe folks there understands the thing different to what we does.” The Poet was inclined to think he was being made a fool of: this mild and worthy old man was quite too much for him. But he swallowed his temper and made an appeal to Joseph’s better feelings. “Bates,” he said, in that gentle pathetic tone that his friends knew so well, “if you had lived in London for thirty years you would love to have the birds about you. Don’t people down here like to hear them sing? Don’t you feel a better man when you listen to a blackbird at dawn, as I did this morning?”