A Wintry Dawn. 3 



the corroded guns of the ancient battery, or, perched 

 in line along the battlements, plan the mischief of the 

 morning. 



On the sands below, a few oyster-catchers and a 

 redshank or two wander up and down along the lines 

 of weed that are left as the tide goes out, or explore 

 the little heaps of foam that are lightly tossed this way 

 and that by the wind. The gulls are mostly out at 

 sea, or scattered over the fields inland, in company 

 with curlews and plovers, who have left the frozen 

 sands to forage in the furrows. 



Suddenly, in a hollow among the sandhills, whose 

 hoary sedges seem still whiter in this pallid light, there 

 is a stir as of some moving animal. There is a hasty 

 gallop of light feet, behind a ridge of Sand, and then 

 — a fox leaps lightly down upon the shore, joined half 

 a second later by another, following in hot pursuit. 

 Fine fellows they are, with their thick brushes tipped 

 with white, and with a tinge of grey upon their winter 

 coats. One behind the other they canter easily down 

 to the edge of the water as if in hopes of picking up 

 for breakfast some wounded teal or mallard that may 

 have drifted in with the tide. They leap over a little 

 promontory of rock, and disappear behind the sand- 

 hills. Here they come again, racing along side by 

 side. Now they pause upon the sand, and turn and 

 face each other, and leap, and dance, and snarl play- 

 fully, like two unthinking cubs, forgetful altogether of 

 dignity and decorum. Now one turns and dashes off, 



i — 2 



