WILD LIFE ON THE WING 
come from ? Who was it ? Where ! How ! 
Why! 
Haro ! Haro ! Haro ! Let them all go seek it ! 
They tumbled from the tower like a mob of 
boys racing out of school, and skimmed head- 
long in a merry pell-mell rout, chasing one 
another, dodging, doubling, feigning fear : 
" You go find it mind it doesn't catch you ! 
Yaha-yaha ! " 
So they came to the great west front, where 
St. John in his niche gazed benignly out over 
the level country, with his psalter held to his 
bosom and a sparrow's nest tucked into the 
deep angle of his arm. Here the rabble swung 
upwards, gabbling and skylarking, forgetting 
their original quest in an aerial catch-as-catch- 
can, and so came upon him. 
Then the game changed to a mirthful panic, as 
when a band of children playing hide-and-seek 
spy him who hides, and run away shrieking. 
With a swoofof wings the peregrine dived after 
them, missed the hindermost by a wing's 
breadth, and swung back to the stone niche 
of St. John, where he rested, his claws clutch- 
ing the saint's chiselled ringlets. He was 
miserable, weary, hungry, a stranger in the 
strangest land which he had ever seen, too 
bewildered to pursue such strong-flighted quarry 
farther. 
44 
