The raven did not laugh.  He had to feed his sitting wife—­not counting his big self—­in that bitter weather, and he was pluming himself upon having turned the eagle from sight of this gift banquet from Providence as well as his nest.  The gray crows saw no cause for merriment, remembering how big the great gull was, and how small are these little, long-wooled, black-faced hill sheep.  Moreover, sheep do not often oblige by getting turned turtle in a cleft of rock, and being unable to right themselves before poor, starving, wild hunters—­I won’t swear who, but it was not the raven this time—­can come and peck their eyes out.

Cob looked at them again—­all five of the gray crows sitting staring straight down their own black gouge-beaks, hunched, cold, out-at-heels, and dejected.  Then he laughed again—­burst into another wild, jeering fit of merriment, and fell to work.

First of all, he pointed out to the raven—­his beak was the pointer—­that he was sitting upon the choicest portion of that sheep, and must make way therefrom instantly.  Next, he turned his head and looked—­only looked—­at a gray crow that had presumed, upon the turning of his broad, black back, to recommence feeding, and that hooded crow moved one yard in one second—­out of reach.  And next, Cob, who apparently loved discipline and cherished good manners, started his banquet, and allowed the others to start theirs.

But it was an unholy feast.  Cob tugged and tore like a butcher without any knives.  At times he nearly fell backwards, when the meat gave way; at times he bolted, and gulped, and choked horribly; at times he was nearly standing upon his head, and at other times upon his tail; and, in case the others should find the woolly outside, where they alone could feed, too easy, he was continually breaking off, to rush—­a red-headed demon from hell now—­at the raven, or glare at the crows and remove them yards, as if his eyes could kill.  As for the herring-gull, he raced and danced in a crazy circle round his giant clansman, apparently smitten with delirium at the luscious titbits he was obliged to watch vanishing down Cob’s bright throat.

The raven, however, was growing desperate.  He was under contract to Fate to feed his wife.  She would freeze there on her nest in the snow among the icicle-studded ledges else.  And every time he had got hold of a big enough dainty to tug free and fly off with, Cob had cut in and collared the said morsel.  As a matter of fact, friend raven was a better carver than the sea-pirate, had a beak better suited for the grisly purpose.  Finally, the black one got hold of a piece of meat, and did not let go.  He hung on, and, before anybody realized that he had moved, Cob’s yellow-and-red-painted bill—­nearly all red now—­had closed upon that raven’s neck.  There was one wild, asthmatical croak from the raven, a whirl of sturdy black and overshadowing black-and-white wings, and the raven was jerked clean head-over-heels, where, among the heather, he lay for a brief second, kicking ignominiously, on his sable back.