“You see what comes of making creatures forget their origin!” I cried with some warmth.
“It is well, surely, if it be to rise higher and grow larger!” he returned. “But indeed I only teach them to find it!”
“Would you have the air full of worms?”
“That is the business of a sexton. If only the rest of the clergy understood it as well!”
In went his beak again through the soft turf, and out came the wriggling worm. He tossed it in the air, and away it flew.
I looked behind me, and gave a cry of dismay: I had but that moment declared I would not leave the house, and already I was a stranger in the strange land!
“What right have you to treat me so, Mr. Raven?” I said with deep offence. “Am I, or am I not, a free agent?”
“A man is as free as he chooses to make himself, never an atom freer,” answered the raven.
“You have no right to make me do things against my will!”
“When you have a will, you will find that no one can.”