CHRISTOPHER IN HIS SPORTING JACKET 



the brown silence of the shy creature's ample wings — 

 and with a warning cry he wheeled away upon the 

 wind, unharmed by our ineffectual hail, seen falling 

 far short of the deceptive distance, while his mate 

 that had lain couched — perhaps in her nest of eggs 

 or young, exposed yet hidden — within killing range, 

 half-running, half-flying, flapped herself into flight, 

 simulating lame leg and wounded wing; and the two 

 disappearing together behind the hills, left us in our 

 vain reason thwarted by instinct, to resume with live 

 hopes rising out of the ashes of the dead, our daily- 

 disappointed quest over the houseless mosses. Yet now 

 and then to our steady aim the bill of the whawp dis- 

 gorged blood — and as we felt the feathers in our hand, 

 and from tip to tip eyed the outstretched wings. For- 

 tune, we felt, had no better boon to bestow, earth no 

 greater triumph. 



Hush — stoop — kneel — crawl — for by all our hopes 

 of mercy — a heron — a heron! An eel dangling across 

 his bill! And now the water-serpent has disappeared! 

 From morning dawn hath the fowl been fishing here 

 — perhaps on that very stone — for it is one of those 

 days when eels are a-roaming in the shallows, and the 

 heron knows that they are as likely to pass by that 

 stone as any other — from morning dawn — and 'tis 

 now past meridian, half-past two! Be propitious, oh 

 ye Fates! and never — never — shall he again fold his 

 [ 64] 



