On the whole, I associated the church with feelings of warmth and benevolence. Other children in the village were most frightened by the Bird Lady carving on the font, in which a woman is crudely depicted, apparently about to do grievous harm to a man, while watched by her sisters and her feathery accomplices, but I always thought of the Bird Lady as a friend and many times had dreams of her watching over me. Like her, I possessed a great affinity with avian life. Whether or not this has anything to do with Percival, and the way I arrived into this world, I do not know, but to this day, blue tits and chaffinches are not shy about entering my kitchen. It is far from uncommon for me to arrive downstairs of a morning and find a song thrush perched on my ottoman. At the Underhill Fair in 1901, when a great gust of wind blew down the Duck Marquee, setting a melee of geese, ducks and hens flapping across the village green, many eyes – eyes that normally ignored my presence – looked immediately to me for assistance, knowing of my reputation. I caught four geese and a duck very easily, while Mrs Addlestrop from the tea room at Upper Wadstray showed great calmness in her handling of a large, vexed black cock. By this time Old Percival was long gone, although he had lingered for more years than had been expected. Many was the time that Dorothy would instruct me to check on him with the words, ‘Doodle, be going out to that hen house un see if that bird un snuffed it yet,’ upon which instructions I would promptly venture to the wooden enclosure where Percival roosted, peer in, ask of his health, and be answered with a croaky ‘Cwawwwk.’