THE PEREGRINE FALCON 
minute from dawn to dusk, screaming 
deviling-like as they chased one another 
over the roofs. Lastly, there were the 
bats, small, quiet people, who shunned 
the light and hung polls downwards 
in musty-smelling companies until sun- 
set. Such were the inhabitants of the 
tower when the peregrine came to 
dwell among them a buccaneer 
among merchantmen. 
Cudog the Jackdaw saw him 
first. Cudog was taking a hurried 
bath in a gutter on the chancel 
roof. There was a click of folding 
wings, and the daw looked up 
with the water-drops still shining 
on his nape. Stonestill, stone grey, the stranger 
perched upon a gable. His hooked bill was 
turned, his eager brown eyes glared upon the 
bather. Cudog dashed away over the transept. 
A minute later, all agog to tell the news, he 
sought his mates where they sat sunning and 
preening themselves. There was a strange 
thing on the roofs their roofs ! A weird 
thing perhaps a dangerous thing ! 
Where was it ? Where ? How ? Why ? Yah ! 
Gah! 
Haro ! Haro ! Haro ! 
Did it come in the night ? Where did it 
43 
