I was astonished to see him back; so, apparently, was the chaffinch.  He started, craned his neck, and regarded his adversary first with one eye then with the other.  “What, rags and tatters, back again so soon!” I seem to hear him say.  “You miserable travesty of a bird, scarcely fit for a weasel to dine on!  Your presence is an insult to us, but I’ll soon settle you.  You’ll feel the cold on the other, side of the wall when I’ve knocked off a few more of your rusty rags.”

Down from his perch he came, but no sooner had he touched his feet to the ground than the blackbird went straight at him with extraordinary fury.  The chaffinch, taken by surprise, was buffeted and knocked over, then, recovering himself, fled in consternation, hotly pursued by the sick one.  Into the bush they went, but in a moment they were out again, darting this way and that, now high up in the trees, now down to the ground, the blackbird always close behind; and no little bird flying from a hawk could have exhibited a greater terror than that pert chaffinch—­that vivacious and most pugnacious little cock bantam.  At last they went quite away, and were lost to sight.  By and by the blackbird returned alone, and, going once more to his place near the second bird, he settled down comfortably to finish his sunbath in peace and quiet.

I had assuredly witnessed a new thing on that unpromising day, something quite different from anything witnessed in my wide rambles; and, though a little thing, it had been a most entertaining comedy in bird life with a very proper ending.  It was clear that the sick blackbird had bitterly resented the treatment he had received; that, brooding on it out in the cold, his anger had made him strong, and that he came back determined to fight, with his plan of action matured.  He was not going to be made a fool every time!

The birds all gone their several ways at last, I got up from my stone and wondered if the old Romans ever dreamed that this wall which they made to endure would after seventeen hundred years have no more important use than this—­to afford shelter to a few little birds and to the solitary man that watched them—­from the bleak wind.  Many a strange Roman curse on this ungenial climate must these same stones have heard.  Looking through a gap in the wall I saw, close by, on the other side, a dozen men at work with pick and shovel throwing up huge piles of earth.  They were uncovering a small portion of that ancient buried city and were finding the foundations and floors and hypocausts of Silchester’s public baths; also some broken pottery and trifling ornaments of bronze and bone.  The workmen in that bitter wind were decidedly better off than the gentlemen from Burlington House in charge of the excavations.  These stood with coats buttoned up and hands thrust deep down in their pockets.  It seemed to me that it was better to sit in the shelter of the wall and watch the birds than to burrow in the crumbling dust