“My young friend,” said the rook, “you had better make haste and go. It’s my duty to hustle you to death for coming here, and I shall do it if you stay another minute. Be off, before the others see you. Here they come--” Jetsom heard no more; he was off, and on the other side of the nearest hedge, before the other rooks could come up; and there he lay for some time, too frightened at first to think. When he recovered himself life presented itself to him in a new aspect; it was evidently not all grubs and wire-worms. It was rather a serious matter. There were other rooks besides those of his colony, and they were not friendly. It was possible to get hustled to death by them. How much there was to be learnt in the world! You had hard work to keep the skin on your bones, to avoid being shot, made a scare-crow of, hustled to death. Why was all this? Why not live in peace with your neighbours? Why should men shoot at you when they laid out allotments for your express benefit? All this was very puzzling to Jetsom, as he lay still under the hedge; things were certainly not as they should be. He could hear the shooting going on in the distance, but at last it stopped, and he summoned up courage to take flight homewards. When he reached the tree, and perched tired out on the first branch he came to, all was hubbub and confusion: but above the din he could hear the hoarse voice of old Gaffer, who had ventured himself quite close to the nest, and was addressing his parents. “Do you know what they do with the young birds they shoot?” said that well-informed old bird. “They pull all the feathers out of their bodies, put them all together into a big dish, and bake them over the fire. Then they eat them, and the cat and the dog get the bones. I’ve seen it all through the window. That ill-omened young Jetsom is in the pie-dish now. Take advice when you can get it. The cook plucked him an hour ago. Capital eating, you may be sure! You fed him so well with worms, you know. So kind of you! Take advice when you can get it. I see the smoke coming out of the chimney now; they’re baking down below. You’ll find his feathers in the back-yard presently. Take advice--” “Stop that, and go and look for your tail-feathers,” said the angry voice of the mother. And she ordered her husband to drive the old wretch away, but at that moment Jetsom flew into the nest. Great was the delight and excitement of the parents; but seeing his exhausted state, his mother sent her husband off on the instant for a cargo of worms, and when she bethought herself next of old Gaffer, that prudent old rook was not to be seen.