kbird returned alone, and, going once more to his place near the
second bird, he settled down comfortably to finish his sunbath in peace
and quiet.

I had assuredly witnessed a new thing on that unpromising day, something
quite different from anything witnessed in my wide rambles; and, though
a little thing, it had been a most entertaining comedy in bird life with
a very proper ending. It was clear that the sick blackbird had bitterly
resented the treatment he had received; that, brooding on it out in the
cold, his anger had made him strong, and that he came back determined
to fight, with his plan of action matured. He was not going to be made a
fool every time!

The birds all gone their several ways at last, I got up from my stone
and wondered if the old Romans ever dreamed that this wall which
they made to endure would after seventeen hundred years have no more
important use than this--to afford shelter to a few little birds and to
the solitary man that watched them--from the bleak wind. Many a strange
Roman curse on this ungenial climate must these same stones have heard.
Looking through a gap in the wall I saw, close by, on the other side, a
dozen men at work with pick and shovel throwing up huge piles of earth.
They were uncovering a small portion of that ancient buried city and
were finding the foundations and floors and hypocausts of Silchester's
public baths; also some broken pottery and trifling ornaments of bronze
and bone. The workmen in that bitter wind were decidedly better off than
the gentlemen from Burlington House in charge of the excavations.
These stood with coats buttoned up and hands thrust deep down in their
pockets. It seemed to me that it was better to sit in the shelter of the
wall and watch the birds than to burrow in the crumbling dust for that
small harvest. Yet I could understand and even appreciate their
work, although it is probable that the glow I experienced was in part
reflected. Perhaps my mental attitude, when standing in that sheltered
place, and when getting on to the windy wall I looked down on the
workers and their work, was merely benevolent. I had pleasure in their
pleasure, and a vague desire for a better understanding, a closer
alliance and harmony. It was the desire that we might all see
nature--the globe with all it contains--as one harmonious whole, not as
groups of things, or phenomena, unrelated, cast there by chance or by
careless or contemptuous gods. This dust of past