IS IT A LIFE OF FEAR? 



61 



There was nothing in the sky to see. They stood 

 still and silent a moment. The rooster chucked. 

 Then one by one they turned back into the open 

 pasture. A huddled group under the hen-yard fence 

 broke up and came out with the others. Death had 

 flashed among them, but had missed them. Fear had ' 

 come, but it had gone. Within two minutes from 

 the fall of the stroke, every hen in the flock was in- 

 tent at her scratching, or as intently chasing the 

 gray grasshoppers over the pasture. 



Yet, as the flock scratched, the high-stepping cock 

 would frequently cast up his eye toward the tree- 

 tops ; would sound his alarum at the flight of a robin ; 

 and if a crow came over, he would shout and dodge 

 and start to run. But instantly the shadow would 

 pass, and instantly Chanticleer 



" He looketh as it were a grym leoun, 

 And on hise toos he rometh up and doun; 



Thus roial as a prince is in an halle." 



He wasn't afraid. Cautious, alert, watchful he was, 

 but not afraid. No shadow of dread lay dark and 

 ominous across the sunshine of his pasture. Shadows 

 came like a flash ; and like a flash they vanished 

 away. 



We cannot go far into the fields without sighting 

 the hawk and the snake, whose other names are 

 Death. In one form or another Death moves every- 

 where, down every wood-path and pasture-lane, 





