208 THE HERON. 



to lift his blue bulk into the air, and, with long- 

 depending legs, at first floated away like a wearied 

 thing, but soon, as his plumes felt the current of air 

 homewards flowing, urged swifter and swifter his 

 easy course, laggard and lazy no more, leaving 

 leagues behind him, ere you had shifted your mo- 

 tion in watching his cloud-like career, soon invi- 

 sible among the woods." " Into the silent twilight of 

 many a wild rock-and-river scene, beautiful and be- 

 wildering as the fairy work of sleep, will he find him- 

 self brought, who knows where to seek the heron in 

 all his solitary haunts. Often, when the moors are 

 storm-swept, and the heron's bill would be baffled by 

 the waves of tarn and loch, he. sails away from his 

 swinging- tree, and through some open glade dipping 

 down to the secluded stream, alights within the calm 

 chasm, and folds his wings in the breezeless air. A 

 better day, a better hour, a better minute, for fish- 

 ing, could not have been chosen by Mr. Heron, 

 who is already swallowing a par. Another and 

 another ! but something falls from the rock into 

 the water; and suspicious, though unalarmed, he 

 leisurely addresses himself to a short flight up the 

 channel, round that tower-like cliff, standing strangely 

 by itself, with a crest of self-sown flowering shrubs. 

 Thou believest thyself to be alone, for the otter, thou 

 knowest, loves not such very rocky rivers ; and fish, 

 with bitten shoulder, seldom lies here that epicure's 

 tasted prey ! " 



