I knew my father was lying to me about the Weasel's nature, but if I was worried about the assignat and worried about Mr. Watkins, I was worried about my daddy even more. If you were ever a boy you will remember the worries of a boy and how they swarm around you, and if I have had no reason to name mine for you until now, it does not mean they were not my constant companions. A boy's life, like a bird's life, is not what is generally assumed. For bird examples, watch the whitethroats gorging in the bramble patches, the warblers gluttoning among the blackberries, the blackcaps swinging off the rose hips, all in a panic to get fat before the summer ends. I, for my part, was forever in a fret lest my daddy die like my mother and leave me with no one to care for me, no one to save me from my cheeky nature, my mimicking, my fear of strangers on the road or in the woods at night, tramps, scamps, hermits, men who put paper noses on their face to frighten boys.

He was a dear tender man, and if he lied to me it was only because he loved me, and his eyes were moist when he gave me the penny and I put my hand inside his and walked back to the printery and worked very conscientious until tea.

Only two days later I was on the lanes with my cart of newspapers, and all around me bindweed, bluebell, chamomile and coltsfoot, ferns uncurling like a thought, white butterflies around my shoulders. All these things I could name and draw, although not so well as I imagined, but they were my deep familiars and they must have given me that comfort a boy does not know he has until it is lost to him and he finds himself robbed of names by providence. There was heather, wild primrose, and around the corner of the rutted lane there came a man walking, duck-footed and bandy-legged, a new white straw hat upon his head.

It was the Weasel and I saw him lift his staff and was afraid.

But of course-you guessed already-he greeted me with a punch to the arm and a sticky dust-covered humbug from his pocket. I sucked on my lolly and he picked a paper from my cart and read through Bunter's setting, finding fifteen faults in as many column inches. "Home sweet home," said he.

And after that everything was calm, and I was able to visit Mr. Watkins and take up his burin once again. It was still summer. My da and I saw glowworms in the night. Then it was almost autumn. I found hazelnuts, hawthorn berries, and sycamore seeds among the leaves. The harvest was ending and as I cut across the paths to Dit'sum I would see the drunken workers at their games, throwing their reap hooks at a sheaf. Now I had worn the sharp edges off my guilty conscience Mr. Watkins became cooler to me once again. Just the same, he instructed me in what is called the crosshatch. After that I was finally permitted to attempt a creature. I chose a butterfly and he was very fierce about it but I knew I did it well enough because he recognized it as a silver-washed fritillary and taught me how to spell its name.

Then I was sent to deliver a box of wedding invitations to the next village after Dit'sum, I forget its name, and I cut across the commons toward its spire only to find myself set upon by a mob of harvesters who came rushing out of the deep shade of an oak and chased me across a ridge and down toward a sluggish stream, and by the time I emerged onto a road through a hedgerow I was cut and bleeding and had lost my invitations and my courage. I set off crying, having no idea of where I was.

I passed a group of men with scythes who did not speak to me, although I suspected them of being the ones who chased me so I would not ask them the way. The hedgerows were high and it was impossible to get any bearing and when a carriage came along I had to press myself back into the buckthorn. It was a very large and black affair, doubtless with some fancy name I did not know, and I can remember no more than the single line of gold along its trim. When its gleaming back wheel was almost past me it stopped, leaving me imprisoned, so to speak, behind its bars. I would have ducked beneath the axle, but feared being squashed and so I remained, black-faced, slashed with red, pinned like a butterfly. I was thus easily identified by the gentleman inside the coach, who poked his smooth-shaven face out the window to consider me.

"Printer's devil," called he. His voice was very Windsor arsehole and he had a hat like an admiral's.

I pulled my forelock although my father would have wished I did not. "Yes sir."

"And where is your printery, devil?"

"Near Dit'sum, sir."

"Is it old Piggott who is your master? You know a chap named Weasel?"

"Yes sir."

"Isn't it a little late in the year for bird nesting?"

"I was on a message sir. I was chased sir."

"By whom were you chased?"

"Farmers sir."

He lowered his spectacles on his nose. It was a good-sized nose at that, not fat, but long and bossy. I could smell the wheat starch powder of his wig.

"Well, Piggott's boy," he said at last, "let me give you a ride home."

"I'm lost sir. I don't know where to go."

"Then you're an exceptionally fortunate devil," said the gentleman who was-as he told me when I was sitting in his coach together with two gents who I took to be his gamekeepers or something of that nature-Lord Devon himself. His men were Mr. Benjamin and Mr. Poole and they also told me I was a lucky little devil and please not to put my filthy hands on his lordship's seats. I had never traveled in such style before and I sat up very straight with my bleeding legs held away from where they might touch anything and, with my hands clasped in my lap, I was left alone to enjoy the privilege of being able to see, above the hedgerows, a peregrine falcon sailing high up in the pale sky.

"That's a hawk, that is," Mr. Poole said. So he was not a gamekeeper, even if he did have leather patches on his jacket elbows. I looked to his lordship to see what he would say it was.

"What do you say, devil?" he asked me, smiling so his beaky face became suddenly very kind. "Is it a hawk?"

"It's a peregrine falcon, sir."

"And what does a peregrine falcon eat, devil?"

"Birds, sir. Although I heard it will eat a fish," I said. "My father saw one take an asp."

"In fact," Mr. Benjamin said, "almost everything."

"Including printers," said Mr. Poole.

His lordship said nothing to that but took an urgent and violent interest in what was outside his window-a great flock of birds, as it happened, about fifty of them, attacking some mystery inside the hedge. This seemed to engage his attention for a very long time.

"You are an enormous fool, Poole," he said at last.

Waxwings, I thought, but did not say.

MRS. PIGGOTT HELD her locks back from her appley face. Then Lord Devon clamped my upper arm, and together we marched to her doorway. She must have been astonished to see the Parrot in the company of a lord.

"Madame?" Devon asked. "Je suppose que votre nom est Marie Piggott?"

Mrs. Piggott curtsied as if very pleased. "Mais oui, monsieur," she said. "That's me."

"Did you know, madame"-and here he used his cane to flick a dead oil beetle from her steps-"did you know, Mrs. Marie Piggott, that the Alien Act of 1793 requires all foreigners to register with customs officials of the police office?"

"What?" she said.

But his lordship was not waiting for an answer or an invitation, and he charged on up the steps with the Parrot still attached.

A small girlish cry from Mrs. Piggott. A fast retreat.

Benjamin and Poole were hard behind us. Their hats were small black dinghies beached upon their wigless heads. All four of us pursued the fleeing mistress through the hall and into the dining room where she awaited us, standing alongside Mr. Piggott, the pair of them in check against the paneled wall.