THE BULL-O-THE-MARSHES. 
pes was a place where nobody ever seemed 
to go to sleep properly, where everybody 
hid unseen, and where the marsh wind and the 
water, getting lost together among the miles 
upon miles of reeds, wandered about aimlessly, 
whispering to themselves and seeking a way 
out. 
The chorus which had lasted all the evening 
was beginning to die down, but the slightest 
noise during the coming night would make it 
break out afresh. The ceaseless reeling of the 
first newly arrived grasshopper-warblers, the 
intermittent ‘Churr! churr!’ of the few new 
reed-warblers, the splash of fish, the flap and 
the grunting cry of the bald, bold, black coots, 
the little ‘T'wee! twee!’ of the jewelled king- 
fishers, and the drumming of madly flying 
snipe were giving place to the tiny squeak of 
bats, the ‘slap-slop’ of diving water-rats, and 
the soft inward remarks of the ghostly short- 
eared owls. 
A star came out. 
And then he came—came from somewhere 
out over the dim south-east, where the drone 
of the sea and the ‘ thud-thud-thud’ of a dis- 
tant steamer’s propeller laboured together. 
