"Pfuff!" said Jock. "As to that, gudeman, I hae been in every jail roon’ aboot! A jail wad be comfort tae me compared wi’ the hole I sleepit in the nicht I left Drumsylie, and the road I hae travelled sinsyne! But wull ye no’ hear me about Adam Mercer?" Spence could not comprehend the character he had to deal with, but beginning to think him probably "a natural", he told him to "say awa’, as the titlin’ remarked tae the gowk". Jock now gathered all his wits about him, so as to be able to give a long and tolerably lucid history of the events which were then agitating the little world of Drumsylie, and of which the Sergeant was the centre. He particularly described the part that Mr. Smellie had taken in the affair, and, perhaps, from more than one grudge he bore to the said gentleman, he made him the chief if not the only real enemy of the Sergeant. The only point which Jock failed to make intelligible to the keeper was his account of the starling. It may have been the confusion of ideas incident to old age when dealing with subjects which do not link themselves to the past; but so it was that there got jumbled up in the keeper’s mind such a number of things connected with a bird which was the bairn of the Sergeant’s bairn, and whistled songs, and told Jock he was a man, and disturbed the peace of the parish, and broke the Sabbath, and deposed the Sergeant, that he could not solve the mystery for himself, nor could Jock make it clear. He therefore accepted Spence’s confusion as the natural result of a true estimate of the facts of the case, which few but the Kirk Session could understand, and accordingly he declared that "the bird was a kin’ o’ witch, a maist extraordinar’ cratur, that seemed to ken a’ things, and unless he was mista’en wad pit a’ things richt gin the hinner en’". The keeper declared "his detestation o’ a’ speaking birds"; and his opinion that "birds were made for shootin’, or for ha’ein’ their necks thrawn for eatin’--unless when layin’ or hatchin’". But what practical object, it may be asked, had Hall in view in this volunteer mission of his? It was, as he told the keeper, to get him to ask his Lordship, as being the greatest man in the district, to interfere in the matter and by all possible means to get Smellie, if not Mr. Porteous, muzzled. "Ye’re Adam’s coosin, I hear," said Jock, "and the head man wi’ his Lordship, and ye hae but tae speak the word and deliver the Sergeant an’ his bird frae the grips o’ these deevils."