summer sky with his fierce eyes, and flapping himself in the breeze.

And just as the little ladies ran into the garden, and Miss Kitty was
saying, "One comfort is, sister Betty, that it's quite safe in the room,
till we can think what to do next," he bowed his yellow crest, spread
his noble wings, and sailed out into the aether.

In ten minutes the whole able-bodied population of the place was in the
grounds of Lingborough, including the farm-bailiff.

The cockatoo was on the top of a fir-tree, and a fragment of the chain
was with him, for he had broken it, and below on the lawn stood the
little ladies, who, with the unfailing courage of women in a hopeless
cause, were trying to dislodge him by waving their pocket-handkerchiefs
and crying "sh!"

He looked composedly down out of one eye for some time, and then he
began to move.

"I think it's coming down now," said Miss Kitty.

But in a quarter of a minute, Cocky had sailed a quarter of a mile, and
was rocking himself on the top of an old willow-tree. And at this moment
John Broom joined the crowd which followed him.

"I'm thinking he's got his chain fast," said the farm-bailiff; "if
onybody that understood the beastie daured to get near him----"

"I'll get him," said John Broom, casting down his hat.