e, and the case was
down to come on at the Town Hall the following morning; but meanwhile
the constable thought fit to keep the pigeons under his own charge in
the village lock-up. Jack refused to be parted from his birds, and
remained with them, leaving Daddy Darwin alone in the Dovecot. He dared
not go to bed, and it was not a pleasant night that he spent, dozing
with weariness, and starting up with fright, in an arm-chair facing the
money-hole.

Some things that he had been nervous about he got quite used to,
however. He bore himself with sufficient dignity in the publicity of the
Town Hall, where a great sensation was created by the pigeons being let
loose without, and coming to Jack's call. Some of them fed from the
boy's lips, and he was the hero of the hour, to Daddy Darwin's delight.

Then the lawyer and the lawyer's office proved genial and comfortable to
him. He liked civil ways and smooth speech, and understood them far
better than Master Shaw's brevity and uncouthness. The lawyer chatted
kindly and intelligently; he gave Daddy Darwin wine and biscuit, and
talked of the long standing of the Darwin family and its vicissitudes;
he even took down some fat yellow books, and showed the old man how many
curious laws had been made from time to time for the special protection
of pigeons in Dovecots, very ancient statutes making the killing of a
house-dove felony. Then 1 James I. c. 29 awarded three months'
imprisonment "without bail or main price" to any person who should
"shoot at, kill, or destroy with any gun, crossbow, stone-bow, or
longbow, any house-dove or pigeon;" but allowed an alternative fine of
twenty shillings to be paid to the churchwardens of the parish for the
benefit of the poor. Daddy Darwin hoped there was no such alternative in
this case, and it proved that by 2 Geo. III. c. 29, the twenty-shilling
fine was transferred to the owner of birds; at which point another
client called, and the polite lawyer left Daddy to study the laws by
himself.

It was when Jack as helping Master Shaw to put the horse into the cart,
after the trial was over, that the farmer said to him, "I don't want to
put you about, my lad, but I'm afraid you won't keep your master long.
T'old gentleman's breaking up, mark my words! Constable and me was going
into the _George_ for a glass, and Master Darwin left us and went
back to the office. I says, 'What are ye going back to t' lawyer for?'
and he says, 'I don't mind telling y