Dawns and Dungeons 121 



When the cage fell and the door had come 

 unlatched, the Linnet was out of it in a moment, 

 but, dizzy and bruised with the fall, and feeling 

 his wings stiff and feeble, he looked for some- 

 thing to rest on. The first object that met his 

 eyes was the donkey in the coster's cart, and 

 indeed there was nothing else in the street that 

 looked the least bit comfortable. Donkeys had 

 been familiar to Lintie on the Downs, and among 

 the thistles they both loved. So he perched 

 on the donkey's back, his claws convulsively 

 grasping the tough grey hair. 



The sharp eyes of a small muddy boy in the 

 gutter instantly caught sight of him, and with 

 a shrill yell he seized an old tin sardine-box with 

 which he had been scraping up the mud for a 

 pie, and aimed it at the bird. But that yell 

 saved Lintie ; the donkey shook his ears as 

 it pierced their hairy recesses, and the bird at 

 the same instance relaxed his hold of the hair 

 and flew up above the house-roofs. 



The air up there was even worse than down 

 in the street. It was still drizzling, and the fine 

 rain, clogged with the smoke from countless 



