had to leave him! He had transferred
his allegiance to a new master and head of the pack. He was under my
protection and felt quite safe: if I had taken any part in that scene it
would have been to order those two persons who had once lorded it over
him out of the room!

I didn't really mind his throwing over his master and taking possession
of the rug in my sitting-room, but I certainly did very keenly resent
his behaviour towards the birds every morning at breakfast-time. It was
my chief pleasure to feed them during the bad weather, and it was often
a difficult task even before Jack came on the scene to mix himself in my
affairs. The Land's End is, I believe, the windiest place in the world,
and when I opened the window and threw the scraps out the wind would
catch and whirl them away like so many feathers over the garden wall,
and I could not see what became of them. It was necessary to go out
by the kitchen door at the back (the front door facing the sea being
impossible) and scatter the food on the lawn, and then go into watch the
result from behind the window. The blackbirds and thrushes would wait
for a lull to fly in over the wall, while the daws would hover overhead
and sometimes succeed in dropping down and seizing a crust, but often
enough when descending they would be caught and whirled away by the
blast. The poor magpies found their long tails very much against them in
the scramble, and it was even worse with the pied wagtail. He would go
straight for the bread and get whirled and tossed about the smooth lawn
like a toy bird made of feathers, his tail blown over his head. It was
bad enough, and then Jack, curious about these visits to the lawn, came
to investigate and finding the scraps, proceeded to eat them all up.
I tried to make him understand better by feeding him before I fed the
birds; then by scolding and even hitting him, but he would not see it;
he knew better than I did; he wasn't hungry and he didn't want bread,
but he would eat it all the same, every scrap of it, just to prevent
it from being wasted. Jack was doubtless both vexed and amused at my
simplicity in thinking that all this food which I put on the lawn would
remain there undevoured by those useless creatures the birds until it
was wanted.

Even this I forgave him, for I saw that he had not, that with his dog
mind he could not, understand me. I also remembered the words of a wise
old Cornish writer with regard to the mind of the lower