THE PHEASANT 
the Cock, who crouched in a corner, too breath- 
less to resent it even when the Pheasant 
stumbled over him. Suddenly the door was 
flung open, and a flood of sunshine poured into 
the place. Creaban, wholly dazzled, dashed 
towards the light, and swinging sideways like 
a woodcock, brushed between the men in the 
doorway. A hand clutched at him, but he tore 
himself free. Leaving a handful of feathers 
behind him, he hurtled over the barn, back to 
the safety of the woods. 
Ill 
The Yellow Pullet's real title was : " That 
Yeller-y Pullet o' Widdy Brady's" ; and Mrs. 
Connell was wont to qualify this by declaring 
that the Yellow Pullet had "the head of a 
hatchet." By this she meant that this par- 
ticular fowl contravened all the known con- 
ventions of poultry. Night after night the 
Pullet roosted thirty feet from the ground, on 
a limb of the great ash-tree which hung over 
the yard. In the daytime, while the rest of 
the fowls wandered obediently from straw-heap 
to stubble, and from stubble to hedgerow, as 
their lord and leader the Cock thought fit, the 
Yellow Pullet, if left to herself, would always 
turn to the wood. Whenever the Cock saw 
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