“He is not wise to do that,” commented Miss Miranda. “When he caws so loudly he is apt to bring the wild crows and they do not like him.” Friendly as Dick was with all members of the human race, he was plainly not on good terms with his own kind. Luxurious living had made him larger and sleeker than they, but a less agile flier. He led a lazy life and was not so practiced or swift on the wing as those hard, wiry birds who gained their living by gleaning in the fields. Even as Betsey watched, a rusty, wild crow flew up, attracted by his cawing, and perched on the wall beside him, followed by another and another. “Oh, look,” Betsey cried, “they are pecking him. And here come some others!” The wild crows had fallen on poor Dick with vicious, stabbing bills and were being joined by a rapidly increasing crowd of comrades. The clamor that arose was deafening, Dick’s pathetic caws being mixed with the angry, harsh cries of his assailants, all of whom were jealous, it seemed, of his plump sides and shining coat. He took flight finally and sailed away toward the top of the hill, pursued by a trailing cloud of chattering enemies. “The wild crows have always hated him,” Miss Miranda said anxiously, “and he will never learn not to provoke them. There are so many this time that I am afraid they will peck him to death.” Elizabeth set off in pursuit, hoping to find where they had alighted and to drive off the attacking birds, but, although she ran with all speed across the lawn and through the gate in the wall, she lost sight of the flock over the crest of the hill. The continued uproar, however, of angry crow voices guided her onward so that she followed farther and farther, hoping every moment to come close enough to scatter the struggling group with a stone. She found traces of the battle here and there, in scattered black feathers that drifted over the grass. She would not give up the chase so long as poor Dick, driven ever farther from home, still called for help from his human friends with a voice that grew continually weaker. Past the ruined house she ran, and down the farther slope of the hill, through unexplored country where thick hedges and overgrown flower beds showed the traces of an abandoned formal garden. There was a sundial, so covered with vines that no one, even at high noon, could have read the hour on its mossy face, and a tumbledown arbor smothered in climbing yellow roses. More and more she realized what a beautiful place this must have been where Miss Miranda had once lived, but Dick’s unhappy progress gave her little time for observation.