204- BIRDS OF THE WAVE AND WOODLAND 



it reached up to the seeds, I would hear his detestable splash- 

 ing — stealthy, he thought it, no doubt, the clumsy wretch, but 

 noisy enough to warn my Red Indian ears a long way off — 

 and I had to go. His own squelching feet and big body 

 forcing a way through the osiers, which whipped his face as 

 he went, hid the noise of my retreat as I slipped along- 

 like some fox, hardly scaring the birds that I passed, and 

 cunningly stepping from point to point so as scarcely to 

 make a splash. And so out at the other end and up into 

 the high road and honie as hard as I could run. 



On one occasion, all but taken by surprise, I suddenly heard 

 the keeper's step close by, and had to slip into the water 

 and sit there, like a coot, with only my head above the 

 surface, and that half-hidden by reeds — and he passed, oh ! 

 so close to me, stopped for an instant to wonder to himself, 

 perhaps, why the water was rippling so, and then went on, 

 so cautiously, so cunningly, knowing that a boy was some- 

 where about, and expecting to pounce on him ; while I just 

 as cautiously rose from my sloppy, weedy lair, and crept 

 off in the other direction, and got into the dusty road, my 

 boots squelching dreadfully, and making as I jogged along 

 (as Ben Jonson says) "great S's like a watering-pot." 



And what was there in the osiers to amuse a boy ? First 

 of all, there were the water-rats, always funny, but 

 never so comical as when cutting: reeds. You would 

 see one q-q down under the water, and the reed would 



