THE PEREGRINE FALCON 
That night it rained heavy, splashing rain. 
By dawn the roofs were clean-washen and wet, 
and a grey plaited current surged down each 
gutter-way. lolar drank, and then being sick 
with hunger trailed himself over the slates in 
search of food. But the pigeons and daws took 
wing at his coming ; and the sparrows strad- 
dling on the dripping stones heard the clank of 
the chain and scurried away. Little enough 
remained of his former feasts, the jackdaws 
were expert scavengers. He tossed aside the 
fragments they had left sundried, rainsodden. 
Sometimes his limbs ached as though the jaws 
of the trap were slowly gnawing them asunder, 
but more often they felt numbed and dead 
insensible even to cold. When they hurt him, 
he turned and fought the iron fought it until 
his tongue bled and the edges of his bill were 
notched and worn. When the more merci- 
ful but no less deadly numbness soothed him 
again, he huddled down with the grey mem- 
brane drawn over his eyes and dreamed of 
the Atlantic crags perhaps, or maybe of the 
upland bogs and moors of Donegal, whose 
granite-crowned hills and quagmires give safe 
harbourage. 
63 
