Little Phoebe Shaw coming out of the day school, and picking her way
home to tea, was startled by folk running past her, and by a sound of
cheering from the far end of the village, which gradually increased in
volume, and was caught up by the bystanders as they ran. When Phoebe
heard that it was "Constable, and Master Shaw, and Daddy Darwin and his
lad, coming home, and the pigeons along wi' 'em," she felt inclined to
run too; but a fit of shyness came over her, and she demurely decided to
wait by the school-gate till they came her way. They did not come. They
stopped. What were they doing? Another bystander explained, "They're
shaking hands wi' Daddy, and I reckon they're making him put up t' birds
here, to see 'em go home to t' Dovecot."
Phoebe ran as if for her life. She loved beast and bird as well as Jack
himself, and the fame of Daddy Darwin's doves was great. To see them put
up by him to fly home after such an adventure was a sight not lightly to
be forgone.
The crowd had moved to a hillock in a neighboring field before she
touched its outskirts. By that time it pretty well numbered the
population of the village, from the oldest inhabitant to the youngest
that could run. Phoebe had her mother's courage and resource. Chirping
out feebly but clearly, "I'm Maester Shaw's little lass, will ye let me
through?" she was passed from hand to hand, till her little fingers
found themselves in Jack's tight clasp, and he fairly lifted her to her
father's side.
She was just in time. Some of the birds had hung about Jack, nervous, or
expecting peas; but the hesitation was past. Free in the sweet
sunshine--beating down the evening air with silver wings and their
feathers like gold--ignorant of cold eggs and callow young dead in
deserted nests--sped on their way by such a roar as rarely shook the
village in its body corporate--they flew straight home--to Daddy
Darwin's Dovecot.