A small boy called Jim Nancarrow was sitting one day eating a pasty on top of the Crow Pound, a large enclosure built on a common by the far-famed St. Neot to impound the pilfering crows of the parish that bears his name. Jim was the son of a thatcher, and he was waiting to accompany his father to a distant hamlet to help him to thatch a cottage. He looked a nice little lad in his clean white smock and nankeen breeches and soft felt hat--much the worse for wear--shading his bright young face and clear blue eyes. As he was waiting for his father and eating his pasty, which his mother had given him for his dinner, he saw a crow flying over Goonzion Downs, of which the Crow Pound common was a part. As he watched it he thought of the pilfering crows which, according to the old tale, little St. Neot impounded there from morning till evening on Sundays, that his people might go to church undisturbed by fear of the great black thievish birds which ate up the corn sown in their fields. Jim had often heard this story from the old people of the parish, and whenever he saw a crow he wondered if it were a relation of the wicked crows their patron Saint had impounded. The crow that the boy was watching was flying in the direction of the Crow Pound, and when it came near it alighted on the top of the wall quite close to the lad. The crow was lean to look at, and scanty of feathers, and such a sorry-looking bird that Jim broke off a piece of his pasty and threw to him, which he ate as if he were starving. 'One would think you were one of the pilfering crows of St. Neot's time,' said Jim, tossing him another piece of his pasty; and to his surprise, the bird answered back: 'I am!' 'Are you?' cried Jim, staring hard at the crow. 'Well, you look ancient enough to be one of those birds, though I have always understood that our patron Saint lived ever so long ago, when Alfred the Great was a little chap like me. But p'r'aps crows tell lies as well as pilfer.' 'If I am not one of the identical crows St. Neot was unkind enough to put into this pound,' croaked the big black bird, eyeing Jim and his pasty with his bright little eye, 'I am a descendant of theirs in the direct line. I truly am,' as the lad stared as if he did not believe the assertion. 'Those poor impounded crows learnt the language of men during the long hours of their imprisonment, listening to all the little Saint and his people said about them outside this pound, and they passed on their dearly-bought knowledge to their children through long generations.' 'Then you are quite "high learnt," as the old Granfer men say,' cried Jim, gazing up at the bird in open-eyed amazement.