IN THE ORCHARD. 35 
cat’s mouth, but I don’t know where the rest 
were ; perhaps the cat did. 
And then our mistle-thrush sailed in. He 
was a born fighter, and he didn’t forget it. 
Nor did the cat. After fifty seconds she 
dropped the nestling hedge-sparrow and fled, 
the small birds still after her, though the 
mistle-thrush stopped. 
Now, it could only have been twenty seconds 
before the hedge-sparrow’s parents came back 
to look for their young one, but they could 
not find it. 
They never found it, for it was not there, 
though the mistle-thrush was singing defiantly 
at the gale once more from the topmost bough 
of a tree overhead. 
