of the first mornings after the coming of the Caw girls--just as we
were all sitting late over our breakfast, having waited for Constantia
(Harriet was always on wing with the lark)--Grace Rigley came up the
back stairs, shuffling her feet and rubbing her nose with her apron for
manners, and told my mother that there was a gamekeeper man who was
very anxious to see her down in the kitchen.

"Go, Joseph!" said my mother. "See what he wants. I cannot be fashed
with such things at such a time."

She had been listening to Harriet's lively lisp and mimicry of
Constantia's many aspirants. But that did not matter. I went down,
and there, sitting on the edge of a chair--he had evidently just sat
down--was Peter Kemp, the gamekeeper at Rushworth Court, where my
father had been so long building greenhouses and doing other
contracting jobs.

"Hello, Peter Kemp!" I said. "What brings you here so early in the
morning?"

The man seemed a little bit scared; but whether because of his errand,
or because I had come in at an inopportune time, or just that he felt a
little awkward, I cannot say.

"Why, this, Master Joe!" he said, holding out something that looked
like a rook's feather, but smaller and with a thicker quick.

The bottom of the quill had been cut away very deftly, and plugged with
something white--bread crumbled between the fingers, I think. The plug
had evidently been removed before, and as I looked curiously at it the
gamekeeper said--

"I did that, Master Joe. You see, I had never seen the like before."

Out of the hollow quill I drew a spiral of paper, like what people used
to light pipes with--spills, they call them--only quite little, for
such pipes as fairies might smoke. And there, written in my father's
hand, in a sort of reddish-grey ink, were the words--

"To whoever finds this.--Please to inform Mrs. Yarrow, Breckonside,
that her husband has been assaulted, carried off and confined, to
compel him to sign papers. Otherwise not unkindly----"

It broke off there, as if something had occurred to bring the writing
to a close.

"How did you get this, Peter?" I asked of the Rushworth gamekeeper.

"I will tell you, Joe." (It was marvellous with what suddenness people
resumed the "Joe," after calling me "Mister"--or "Master," at least.)
"I got 'un off the tail of a jackdaw when I was thinnin' out them rooks
up at our old ellums by the hall. Jackdaws flock with them sometimes,
you know, Joe."