"I felt a bit cut up when his father died, sir, but thank the Lord he aren't here now to see the boy as he 'most worshipped pulled down as he be. Why, I were down in Sucksix, sir, in the marshes, for two years, 'twix' Hastings and Rye, and I had the ager awful bad, but it never pulled me down like this. Do try your best with Sir James, do, pray." "I will, Monnick, I will," said the doctor. Monnick went on with his weeding, and the doctor sat watching in a low-spirited way the motions of a beautiful little robin that kept popping down and seizing some worm which, alarmed by the disturbance of the ground, was trying to escape. "What humbug popular favouritism is," he exclaimed suddenly. "Beg pardon, sir," said Monnick, glad of an excuse to straighten his back. "I say what humbug there is in the world," said the doctor. "Look at that robin, Monnick." "Yes, sir; he be a pretty one too. There's lots on 'em here, and welcome as rain." "Yes," said the doctor, "but what humbug it is." Monnick stared, and the robin hopped on the top of a garden stick and chirruped a few notes. "Just imagine," said the doctor, who was in a didactic mood; "try and imagine a stout, well-built man, six feet high, a fine, handsome brawny savage, seizing a boa constrictor in his teeth, shaking the, say, eighteen feet of writhing bone and muscle till it had grown weak and limp, and, by a complete reverse of all rule, swallowing the lengthy monster without an effort. The idea partakes of the nature of the serpent, and is monstrous; but all the same, that little petted and be-praised impostor will hop up to a great earthworm three times his length, give it a few digs with his sharp beak, and then--as the Americans would say--get outside it apparently without effort or ruffling a feather, after which he will hop away, flit to a twig, and indulge in a short, sharp song of triumph over his deed. It is his nature to, no doubt, and so are a good many more of his acts; but in these days, when it has grown to be the custom to run tilt at no end of our cherished notions; when we are taught that Alfred did not burn the cakes; that Caractacus never made that pathetic speech about the wealth of Rome: it is only fair to strip the hypocritical feather cloak of hypocrisy off that flagrant little impostor, the robin." "The robin and the wren be God's cock and hen," said John Monnick solemnly, pairing according to old custom two birds of different kinds. "Yes," said the doctor, "and terrible are the penalties supposed to attach to the man or boy who takes the nest, steals the egg, or destroys old or young of their sacred progeny. As a matter of course, no one ever did take egg, nest, or destroy the young of this couple, inasmuch as they are two distinct birds." "Yes, sir, two of 'em," said John Monnick solemnly. "The robin and the wren be God's cock and hen, and nobody never takes their eggs but jays and magpies and such like, robins is always the friends of man."