the old ballad) walks by himself. The lack of harmony is so evident here, and the slight so
intentional and direct, that it almost moves me to tears. The others walk soberly, always
in couples, but even Burd Alane's rightful spouse is on the side of the majority, and
avoids her consort.
What is the nature of his offence? There can be no connubial jealousies, I judge, as geese
are strictly monogamous, and having chosen a partner of their joys and sorrows they
cleave to each other until death or some other inexorable circumstance does them part. If
they are ever mistaken in their choice, and think they might have done better, the world is
none the wiser. Burd Alane looks in good condition, but Phoebe thinks he is not quite
himself, and that some day when he is in greater strength he will turn on his foes and rend
them, regaining thus his lost prestige, for formerly he was king of the flock.
Phoebe has not a vestige of sentiment. She just asked me if I would have a duckling or a
gosling for dinner; that there were two quite ready--the brown and yellow duckling, that
is the last to leave the water at night, and the white gosling that never knows his own
'ouse. Which would I 'ave, and would I 'ave it with sage and onion?
Now, had I found a duckling on the table at dinner I should have eaten it without thinking
at all, or with the thought that it had come from Barbury Green. But eat a duckling that I
have stoned out of the pond, pursued up the bank, chased behind the wire netting, caught,
screaming, in a corner, and carried struggling to his bed? Feed upon an idiot gosling that I
have found in nine different coops on nine successive nights--in with the newly-hatched
chicks, the half-grown pullets, the setting hen, the "invaleed goose," the drake with the
gapes, the old ducks in the pen?--Eat a gosling that I have caught and put in with his
brothers and sisters (whom he never recognises) so frequently and regularly that I am
familiar with every joint in his body?
In the first place, with my own small bump of locality and lack of geography, I would
never willingly consume a creature who might, by some strange process of assimilation,
make me worse in this respect; in the second place, I should have to be ravenous indeed
to sit down deliberately and make a meal of an intimate friend, no matter if I had not a
high opinion of his intelligence. I should as soon think of eating the Square Baby, stuffed
with sage and onion and garnished with green apple-sauce, as the yellow duckling or the
idiot gosling.
Mrs. Heaven has just called me into her sitting-room, ostensibly to ask me to order
breakfast, but really for the pleasure of conversation. Why she should inquire whether I
would relish some gammon of bacon with eggs, when she knows that there has not been,
is not now, and never will be, anything but gammon of bacon with eggs, is more than I
can explain.
"Would you like to see my flowers, miss?" she asks, folding her plump hands over her
white apron. "They are looking beautiful this morning. I am so fond of potted plants, of
