At one end of the Wiltshire village where I was staying there was a
group of half-a-dozen
Cottages surrounded by gardens and shade trees,
and every time I passed this spot on my way to and from the downs on
that side, I was hailed by a loud challenging cry - a sort of "Hullo,
who goes there!" Unmistakably the voice of a jackdaw, a pet bird no
doubt, friendly and impudent as one always expects Jackie to be. And as
I always like to learn the history of every pet daw I come across, I
went down to the cottage the cry usually came from to make enquiries.
The door was opened to me by a tall, colourless, depressed-looking
woman, who said in reply to my question that she didn't own no jackdaw.
There was such a bird there, but it was her husband's and she didn't
know nothing about it. I couldn't see it because it had flown away
somewhere and wouldn't be back for a long time. I could ask her husband
about it; he was the village sweep, and also had a carpenter's shop.
I did not venture to cross-question her; but the history of the daw
came to me soon enough - on the evening of the same day in fact. I was
staying at the inn and had already become aware that the bar-parlour
was the customary meeting-place of a majority of the men in that small
isolated centre of humanity. There was no club nor institute or
reading-room, nor squire or other predominant person to regulate things
differently. The landlord, wise in his generation, provided newspapers
liberally as well as beer, and had his reward. The people who gathered
there of an evening included two or three farmers, a couple of
professional gentlemen - not the vicar; a man of property, the postman,
the carrier, the butcher, the baker and other tradesmen, the farm and
other labourers, and last, but not least, the village sweep. A curious
democratic assembly to be met with in a rural village in a purely
agricultural district, extremely conservative in politics.
I had already made the acquaintance of some of the people, high and
low, and on that evening, hearing much hilarious talk in the parlour, I
went in to join the company, and found fifteen or twenty persons
present. The conversation, when I found a seat, had subsided into a
quiet tone, but presently the door opened and a short, robust-looking
man with a round, florid, smiling face looked in upon us.
"Hullo, Jimmy, what makes you so late?" said someone in the room.
"We're waiting to hear the finish of all that trouble about your bird
at home. Stolen any more of your wife's jewellery? Come in, and let's
hear all about it."
"Oh, give him time," said another. "Can't you see his brain's busy
inventing something new to tell us!"
"Inventing, you say!" exclaimed Jimmy, with affected anger.
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