202 THE JONATHAN PAPERS 



rush of wings. Jonathan dropped on one 

 knee, gun up, but we saw nothing. 



66 We ll settle down here,&quot; he said. &quot;There ll 

 be more coming in soon. Wait a minute 

 hold my gun.&quot; He disappeared in the fog, 

 and came back with an armful of hay, taken 

 from the heart of a haystack of whose exist 

 ence he seemed, by some sixth or seventh 

 sense, to be aware. &quot;There! That ll keep 

 you off the real marsh. Now settle down, and 

 don t move, and listen with all your ears, and 

 be ready. I ll go off a little way.&quot; 



I sank down on the hay, and watched him 

 melt into the grayness. I was alone in the dim 

 marsh. There was no wind, no sound but the 

 far-off whistle and rush of a train. I lay there 

 and thought of nothing. I let myself be ab 

 sorbed into the twilight. I did not even feel 

 that I had a soul. I was nothing but a point of 

 consciousness in the midst of a gray infinity. 



Suddenly I was aware of a sound a rapid 

 pulsing of soft, high tone too soft for a 

 whistle, too high for a song, pervasive, elus 

 ive; it was overhead, it was beside me, behind 

 me, where? Ah it was wings! The winnowing 

 of wings! I half rose, grasping my gun, with 



