se they were to fly
away, how very annoying! Ah, but, said hope, there's little fear of
that; feed them well and they will never fly away, or if they do they
will come back, my uncle says so; so sunshine triumphed for a little
time. Then the strangest of all doubts came into my head; I doubted the
legality of my tenure of these hawks; how did I come by them? why, my
uncle gave them to me, but how did they come into his possession? what
right had he to them? after all, they might not be his to give. I passed
a sleepless night. The next morning I found that the man who brought the
hawks had not departed. "How came my uncle by these hawks?" I anxiously
inquired. "They were sent to him from Norway, master, with another
pair." "And who sent them?" "That I don't know, master, but I suppose
his honour can tell you." I was even thinking of scrawling a letter to
my uncle to make inquiry on this point, but shame restrained me, and I
likewise reflected that it would be impossible for him to give my mind
entire satisfaction; it is true he could tell who sent him the hawks, but
how was he to know how the hawks came into the possession of those who
sent them to him, and by what right they possessed them or the parents of
the hawks? In a word, I wanted a clear valid title, as lawyers would
say, to my hawks, and I believe no title would have satisfied me that did
not extend up to the time of the first hawk, that is, prior to Adam; and,
could I have obtained such a title, I make no doubt that, young as I was,
I should have suspected that it was full of flaws.

'I was now disgusted with the hawks, and no wonder, seeing all the
disquietude they had caused me; I soon totally neglected the poor birds,
and they would have starved had not some of the servants taken compassion
upon them and fed them. My uncle, soon hearing of my neglect, was angry,
and took the birds away; he was a very good-natured man, however, and
soon sent me a fine pony; at first I was charmed with the pony, soon,
however, the same kind of thoughts arose which had disgusted me on a
former occasion. How did my uncle become possessed of the pony? This
question I asked him the first time I saw him. Oh, he had bought it of a
gypsy, that I might learn to ride upon it. A gypsy; I had heard that
gypsies were great thieves, and I instantly began to fear that the gypsy
had stolen the pony, and it is probable that for this apprehension I had
better grounds than for ma