One April morning I found a dead sparrow. “Ah,” I said, “our cats have been at work here.”

“What, en't they eat 'n?” says Bettesworth. “Their bellies be too full a'ready. They be too well-fed.”

“I expect they'll be getting at these up by the house here, by and by.”

“What, got a nest in the house, sir?”

“No, no. Here, look; just by the door.”

I showed where mortar had been pulled away, disclosing a hollow in the brickwork. “I fancy there's a nest there. We often hear a great twittering.”

Bettesworth looked at it for half a minute; then, “I remembers one time when I was helpin' Beagley at a job over there at ol' Miss Lawrence's at Cashford. There was air-bricks, you know, right along by the ground for ventilatin' the floors. The bees had found this out, an' made a nest right in under her parlour floor, an' they used to come up through somewhere. At last she sent out to Beagley—' the place was reg'lar swarmin' wi' bees,' she said,' ‘so's she cou'n't bide there.' Well, I laughed an' I gits a long stick an' I pokes it into one o' these here holes. Out they all come—oh, ther' must ha' bin thousands and thousands of 'em—an' then I did laugh. We all got out o' the way 's fast as we could.