First in the Field

"I say, don't, Green: let the poor things alone " "You mind your own business. Oh bother the old thorns " Brian Green snatched his hand out of the quickset hedge into which he had thrust it, to reach the rough outside of a nest built by a bird, evidently in the belief that the hawthorn leaves would hide it from sight, and while they were growing the thorns would protect it from mischievous hands.