that he had thought a good deal about giving the walnut away, and had
looked on it as rather an important present. It was, perhaps, the only
one he had ever made in his life. While giving it to me he said very
nicely, "Pray make use of it."

The use I have made of it is to put it carefully away among other
treasured objects, picked up at odd times in out-of-the-way places. It
may be that some minute mysterious insect or infinitesimal mite--there
is almost certain to be a special walnut mite--has found an entrance
into this prized nut and fed on its oily meat, reducing it within to a
rust-coloured powder. The grub or mite, or whatever it is, may do so at
its pleasure, and flourish and grow fat, and rear a numerous family,
and get them out if it can; but all these corroding processes and
changes going on inside the shell do not in the least diminish my nut's
intrinsic value.




XXVII

A STORY OF A JACKDAW


At one end of the Wiltshire village where I was staying there was a
group of half-a-dozen cottages surrounded by gardens and shade trees,
and every time I passed this spot on my way to and from the downs on
that side, I was hailed by a loud challenging cry--a sort of "Hullo,
who goes there!" Unmistakably the voice of a jackdaw, a pet bird no
doubt, friendly and impudent as one always expects Jackie to be. And as