Over this majestic desolation suddenly there shot forth a great company of rooks, and the wind drove them before it--whirling and wheeling and tumbling in giddy dives, only to mount again. A joyous spirit clearly dominated the feathered people. They circled and cried aloud in merry exultation of the air. They swooped and soared, rushed this way and that on slanting pinions, played together and revelled in the immense force that drove them like projectiles in a wild throng before it. Even to these aerial things such speed was strange. They seemed to comment in their language upon this new experience. Then the instinct unfathomed that makes vast companies of living creatures wheel and warp together in mysterious and perfect unison, inspired them. They turned simultaneously, ascended and set their course against the wind. But they could make no headway now, and, in a cloud, they were blown together, discomforted, beaten to leeward. Whereupon they descended swiftly to the level of the ground, and, flying low, plodded together back whence they had come. At a yard or two above earth's surface they steadily flapped along, cheated the wind, and for a few moments flashed a reflected light over the Moor with their innumerable shining black bodies and pinions outspread. At a hedge they rose only to dip again, and here Humphrey, who drew up to watch them, marked how they worked in the teeth of the gale, and was near enough to see their great grey bills, their anxious, glittering eyes, and their hurtling feathers blown awry as they breasted the hedge, fought over, and dipped again. "'Tis the same as life," he reflected. "Go aloft and strive for high opinions, and the wind of doubt blows you before it like a leaf. Up there you can travel with the storm, not against it. If you want to go t'other way, you've got to feel along close to earth seemingly--to earth and the manners of earth and the folk of the earth. And hard work at that; but better than driving along all alone." He derived some consolation from this inchoate thought, and suspected a moral; but the simile broke down. His mind returned to Mr. Popham presently, and, taking leave of the Moor, he descended and arrived at the lawyer's house upon the appointed hour. The things that he heard, though he was prepared for some such recital, astounded him by their far-reaching gravity. The fact was of a familiar character; but it came with the acidulated sting of novelty to those involved. An uproar, of which Humphrey in his isolation had heard but the dim echo, already rioted through Shaugh Prior, and far beyond it. "I'll give you a sketch of the situation," said the man of business. "And I will then submit my own theory of it--not that any theory can alter the exceedingly unpleasant facts. It belongs merely to the moral side of the situation, and may help a little to condone our poor friend's conduct. In a word, I do not believe he was responsible."