Letter XLIV

I sat up from half-past one to a quarter to five to see our shadow go
over heaven. I didn't see much, the sky was too piebald: but I was not
disappointed, as I had never watched the darkness into dawn like that
before: and it was interesting to hear all the persons awaking:--cocks
at half-past four, frogs immediately after, then pheasants and various
others following. I was cuddled close up against my window, throned in a
big arm-chair with many pillows, a spirit-lamp, cocoa, bread and butter,
and buns; so I fared well. Just after the pheasants and the first
querulous fidgetings of hungry blackbirds comes a soft pattering along
the path below: and Benjy, secretive and important, is fussing his way
to the shrubbery, when instinct or real sentiment prompts him to look up
at my window; he gives a whimper and a wag, and goes on. I try to
persuade myself that he didn't see me, and that he does this, other
mornings, when I am not thus perversely bolstered up in rebellion, and
peering through blinds at wrong hours. Isn't there something pathetic in
the very idea that a dog may have a behind-your-back attachment of that
sort?--that every morning he looks up at an unresponsive blank, and
wags, and goes by?

I heard him very happy in the shrubs a moment after: he and a pheasant,
I fancy, disputing over a question of boundaries. And he comes in for
breakfast, three hours later, looking positively fresh, and wants to
know why I am yawning.