And it will be safer for me to have mine own perch.

I will venture to sleep one more night in the tree; but after that I will sleep by day and watch by night, for it is plain that he is a night bird in his visits here." The next day Cuthbert set to work with a better heart.

It was not difficult to find the sort of nook he wanted high up in the branches of a great sycamore.

The oaks were hardly thick enough yet to conceal him, and the foliage of the elm was somewhat scanty still, for all that the season was forward.

But by good hap there chanced to be, amongst the tall trees that fringed the round of sward, a noble sycamore in full leaf and very thick; and by skillful contrivance, and with the help of his tools, Cuthbert quickly built himself up there a small but secure and commodious platform, upon which he could perch himself at ease and watch the whole of the dell.