STORY OF A JACKDAW
WHEN I laid my pen down after concluding Part V it pleased me to think that I had written the last word, that, my task finished, I was free to go on to something else. But I was not yet wholly free of the jackdaws; their yelping cries were still ringing in my mental ears, and their remembered shapes were still all about me in their black dress, or cassock, grey hood, and malicious little grey eyes. The persistent images suggested that my task was not properly finished after all, that it would be better to conclude with one of those anecdotes or stories of the domesticated bird which I have said are so common; also that this should be a typical story, which would serve to illustrate the peculiar daw sentiment--the affectionate interest we take in him, not only in spite of his impudence and impishness and naughtiness, but also to some extent because of these same
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qualities, which find an echo in us. Accordingly I set myself to recall some of the latest anecdotes of this kind which I had heard, and selected the one which follows, not because it was more interesting as a daw story than the others, but mainly on account of the shrewd and humorous and dramatic way in which it was related to me by a little boy of the working class.
I met him on a bright Sunday morning at the end of June in the park-like grounds of Walmer Castle. I had not long been seated on a garden bench when a daw came flying to a tree close by and began craning her neck and eyeing me with one eye, then the other, with an intense, almost painful curiosity; and these nervous movements and gestures immediately revealed to me that she had a nestful of young birds somewhere close by. After changing her position several times to view me from other points and find out what I was there for, she came to the conclusion that I was not to be got rid of, and making a sudden dash to a tree standing just before me, disappeared in a small hole or cleft in the trunk about forty-five feet above the ground, and in a few seconds came out again and flew swiftly away. In four or five
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minutes she returned, and after eyeing me suspiciously a short time flew again to the tree and, vanishing from sight in the hole, remained there. I was intently watching that small black spot in the bark to see her emerge, when a little boy came slowly sauntering past my bench, and glancing at him I found that his shrewd brown eyes were watching my face and that he had a knowing half-smile on his lips.