“He stopped all at once and came towards me.
“‘As a rule,’ he said, ‘people don’t like me owing to this ugly, erratic eye of mine, but what care I? Have I not solitude, and don’t all God’s creatures love me?’”
. . . . . .
I make a slight digression here, reader, just to tell you that you would not think the above sketch one whit overdrawn if you but knew the tameness of the wild birds I myself feed in winter, at my wigwam window, or even in summer away in the woods. I boldly aver that the wild birds do know who loves them, and that they can return that love with affection unalloyed. It is only because of the cruelty of man towards wild creatures that they suspect him of evil, and keep aloof from him.
Do you remember what Burns says in his address to the poor mouse, whose nest he had upturned with his ploughshare?
“I’m truly sorry man’s dominion
Has broken Nature’s social union,
An’ justifies that ill opinion
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor earthborn companion
An’ fellow mortal.”
Truer words were never spoken.
. . . . . .
“Well, neighbour,” said the first speaker, “all that but increases the mystery, A good heart he must have in spite of that awful eye, but still I think he isn’t altogether human.”
. . . . . .