228 THE RECTORY AND ITS BIRDS 



where my tame raven " Jacob" used to play his 

 pranks, and store up his stolen treasures for his 

 successor. A stable and coach-house have been 

 cut out of it, but it is still one of the biggest 

 buildings in the parish, and looks as though it 

 could still hold a tithe of all the parish produce. 

 The picturesque projection in the middle, under the 

 shelter of which a loaded waggon can take its stand, 

 extended its hospitality to all the birds I have 

 described as haunting the Rectory thatch, except 

 the swift. In these modern days, a barn gives 

 shelter, only or chiefly, to the uncomfortable-looking 

 machinery, steam ploughs and reaping machines, 

 which form the necessary stock-in-trade of the 

 modern farmer ; but, in my day, the barn was filled 

 to the very rafters with wheat, or straw, or hay ; and 

 the dark recess in the topmost corner was the 

 sanctuary of the white owl, which I could watch, 

 while it was watching for its prey, as I have described 

 in detail in the earliest chapter of this book. 



But the old barn had other uses than the 

 agricultural. Parish memories clustered thick 

 around it. It had celebrated, so I used to hear, 

 the "accession of King George," probably of all 

 the sorry lot of Georges, with equal and unquestion- 

 ing loyalty ; with better reason, the whole parish 



