quite hopeless to try and get rid of the mice.

"Poor old Flaps, too, was very ill. A good many days elapsed before he
could get about, and for years he walked lame on his injured leg.

"One morning as the fowls were listlessly wandering about, wondering
what was to happen next, Mark, the watchman, was heard crowing away in a
very excited manner,

"'What do I see?
Twenty and three!'

"'What do you see?' cried they all in a great fright. 'Twenty and three
what?'

"'An army of soldiers dressed in smock frocks. They are armed with
pitchforks, and the black gipsy is their general.'

"The fowls flew up like a cloud to the roof, and sure enough they saw
the rat-catcher coming across the heath with a crowd of villagers
towards the castle.

"When they broke the doleful news to Flaps, he said, 'That scoundrel of
a man has betrayed our hiding-place, and we must wander forth again. Get
ready, and keep up your spirits, and remember that in any case we should
not have been able to stay here much longer, on account of the mice.'

"So the hens filled their crops as full as possible, and escaped with
Flaps out at the back door.

"When the country-folk got to the house, they found nothing in it but a
small heap of corn; so they fell upon the gipsy and half killed him for
having brought them on a fool's errand. Then they divided what little
corn there was left, and went away.

"As to the mice they were left to whistle for their food.

"So ends the tale of the Hens of Hencastle."

"And a very fine tale too," said one of the stranger-hens who had been
asleep all the time, and woke up with a jump. "It was deeply
interesting." The threshers happened to have stopped to rest for a
moment, or she would never have woke at all.

"Of course it was!" said the cock, full of dignity; and he shook his
feathers straight.

"But what became of the fowls afterwards?" asked one of the common hens.

"I never tell a hen a secret," said the cock; and he strutted off to
hunt for worms.

FLAPS.

A SEQUEL TO "THE HENS OF HENCASTLE."

And what became of Flaps after they all left Hencastle? Well, he led his
company on and on, but they could find no suitable place to settle in;
and when the fowls recovered from their fright, they began to think that
they had abandoned the castle too hastily, and to lay the blame on
Flaps.

Mark himself said that he might have overestimated the number of the
invaders. There might not have