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.