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. "There's no
need to do that! That there bird does tricks nobody would think of."
Here the person sitting next to me, speaking low, informed me that this
was Jimmy Jacob, the sweep, that he owned a pet jackdaw, known to every
one in the village, and supposed to be the cleverest bird that ever
was. He added that Jimmy could be very amusing about his bird.
"I'd already begun to feel curious about that bird of yours," I said,
addressing the sweep. "I'd like very much to hear his history. Did you
take him from the nest?"
"Yes, Jim," said the man next to me. "Tell us how you came by the bird;
it's sure to be a good story."
Jimmy, having found a seat and had a mug of beer put before him, began
by remarking that he knew someone had been interesting himself in that
bird of his. "When I went home to tea this afternoon," he continued,
"my missus, she says to me: 'There's that bird of yours again,' she
says."
"'What bird,' says I. 'If you mean Jac,' says I, 'what's he done now? -
out with it.'
"'We'll talk about what he's done bimeby,' says she. 'What I mean is, a
gentleman called to ask about that bird.'
"'Oh, did he?' says I. 'Yes,' she says. 'I told him I didn't know
nothing about it. He could go and ask you. You'd be sure to tell him a
lot.'
"'And what did the gentleman say to that?' says I.
"'He arsked me who you was, an' I said you was the sweep an' you had a
carpenter's shop near the pub, and was supposed to do carpentering.'
"Supposed to do carpentering! That's how she said it.
"'And what did the gentleman say to that?' says I.
"'He said he thought he seen you at the inn, and I said that's just
where he would see you.'
"'Anything more between you and the gentleman?' says I, and she said:
'No, nothing more except that he said he'd look you up and arst if you
was a funny little fat man, sort of round, with a little red face.' And
I said, 'Yes, that's him.'"
Here I thought it time to break in. "It's true," I said, "I called at
your cottage and saw your wife, but there's no truth in the account
you've given of the conversation I had with her."
There was a general laugh. "Oh, very well," said Jimmy. "After that
I've nothing more to say about the bird or anything else."
I replied that I was sorry, but we need not begin our acquaintance by
quarrelling - that it would be better to have a drink together.
Jimmy smiled consent, and I called for another pint for Jimmy and a
soda for myself; then added I was so sorry he had taken it that way as
I should have liked to hear how he got his bird.
He answered that if I put it that way he wouldn't mind telling me. And
everybody was pleased, and composed ourselves once more to listen.
"How I got that there bird was like this," he began. "It were about
half after four in the morning, summer before last, an' I was just
having what I may call my beauty sleep, when all of a sudding there
came a most thundering rat-a-tat-tat at the door.
