the grove, but has been fairly ejected by the
rooks; and has retired, disgusted with the world, to a neighbouring
wood, where he leads the life of a hermit, and makes nightly
complaints of his ill-treatment.

The hootings of this unhappy gentleman may generally be heard in the
still evenings, when the rooks are all at rest; and I have often
listened to them of a moonlight night with a kind of mysterious
gratification. This gray-bearded misanthrope, of course, is highly
respected by the Squire; but the servants have superstitious notions
about him, and it would be difficult to get the dairy-maid to venture
after dark near to the wood which he inhabits.

Beside the private quarrels of the rooks, there are other misfortunes
to which they are liable, and which often bring distress into the most
respectable families of the rookery. Having the true baronial spirit
of the good old feudal times, they are apt now and then to issue forth
from their castles on a foray, and to lay the plebeian fields of the
neighbouring country under contribution; in the course of which
chivalrous expeditions, they now and then get a shot from the rusty
artillery of some refractory farmer. Occasionally, too, while they are
quietly taking the air beyond the park boundaries, they have the
incaution to come within the reach of the truant bowman of Slingsby's
school, and receive a flight shot from some unlucky urchin's arrow. In
such case, the wounded adventurer will sometimes have just strength
enough to bring himself home, and, giving up the ghost at the rookery,
will hang dangling "all abroad" on a bough, like a thief on a
gibbet--an awful warning to his friends, and an object of great
commiseration to the Squire.

But, maugre all these untoward incidents, the rooks have, upon the
whole, a happy holiday life of it. When their young are reared and
fairly launched upon their native element, the air, the cares of the
old folks seem over, and they resume all their aristocratical dignity
and idleness. I have envied them the enjoyment which they appear to
have in their ethereal heights, sporting with clamorous exultation
about their lofty bowers; sometimes hovering over them, sometimes
partially alighting upon the topmost branches, and there balancing
with outstretched wings and swinging in the breeze. Sometimes they
seem to take a fashionable drive to the church and amuse themselves by
circling in airy rings about its spire; at other times a mere garr