HAUNT OF THE EVEJAR 37 



glow was the sun behind the vapours where 

 a fume of vague light appeared over the 

 hills to eastward. More sinister grew the 

 outline of the headland, a beast replete 

 and resting its shaggy head on sunken paws. 

 No gulls drifted to their nocturnal roosting; 

 the buzzard had plunged into the hidden 

 pinewood to his eyrie. Here a vast collec- 

 tion of sticks, rabbits' bones, rats' tails, 

 beetle skins and skulls of voles, carried there 

 during a score of years, and resting in a fir, 

 supported his brooding mate and her three 

 blotched eggs. 



When the moon was up an evejar rose from 

 the patch of swaled gorse; the creamy marks 

 on its wings and tail were visible in the 

 confluence of light from the gates of heaven 

 the flood of the moon's white fires and 

 the lingering afterglow over the A dan tic. 

 In anguish at the violation of its hymeneal 

 sanctities the skep-swallow returned and 

 wheeled, beating its wings together. No 

 sound disturbed the silence, no movement 



