"Aye. There's a many old standards gone home o' lately."

"What do they call _him?_"

"T' young chap?"

"Aye."

"They _call_ him--Darwin."

"Dar--win? I should known a Darwin. They're old standards, is Darwins.
What's he to Daddy Darwin of t' Dovecot yonder?"

"He _owns_ t' Dovecot. Did ye see t' lass?"

"Aye. Shoo's his missus, I reckon?"

"Aye."

"What did they call her?"

"Phoebe Shaw they called her. And if she'd been _my_ lass--but
that's nother here nor there, and he's got t' Dovecot."

"Shaw? _They're_ old standards, is Shaws. Phoebe? They called her
mother Phoebe. Phoebe Johnson. She were a dainty lass! My father were
very fond of Phoebe Johnson. He said she allus put him i' mind of our
orchard on drying days; pink and white apple-blossom and clean clothes.
And yon's her daughter? Where d'ye say t'young chap come from? He don't
look like hereabouts."

"He don't come from hereabouts. And yet he do come from hereabouts, as
one may say. Look ye here. He come from t' wukhus. That's the short and
the long of it."

"_The workhouse!_"

"Aye."

Stupefaction. The crows chattering wildly overhead.

"And he owns Darwin's Dovecot?"

"He owns Darwin's Dovecot."

"And how i' t' name o' all things did that come about'!"

"Why, I'll tell thee. It was i' this fashion."

* * * * *

Not without reason does the wary writer put gossip in the mouths of
gaffers rather than of gammers. Male gossips love scandal as dearly as
female gossips do, and they bring to it the stronger relish and energies
of their sex. But these were country gaffers, whose speech--like
shadows--grows lengthy in the leisurely hours of eventide. The gentle
reader shall have the tale in plain narration.

NOTE--It will be plain to the reader that the birds here described are
Rooks (_corvus frugilegus_). I have allowed myself to speak of them
by their generic or family name of Crow, this being a common country
practice. The genus _corvus_, or _Crow_, includes the Raven,
the Carrion Crow, the Hooded Crow, the Jackdaw, and the Rook.

SCENE I.

One Saturday night (some eighteen years earlier than the date of this
gaffer-gossiping) the parson's daughter sat in her own room before the
open drawer of a bandy-legged black oak table, _balancing her
bags_. The bags were money-bags, and the matter shall be made clear
at once.

In this parish, as in others, progress and the multiplication of weapons
wit