stayed. They were the only ones in possession 

 as I moved away ; and they will be the only 

 ones in possession when I return. If that is 

 next summer, then I shall find a colony of twenty 

 sparrow families around the hawk's nest. The 

 purple grackles will be gone. And the fish- 

 hawks'? Only the question of another year or 

 so when they, too, shall be dispossessed and 

 gone. But where will they go to escape the 

 sparrows ? 



Ill 



Feom a mile away I turned to look back at 

 the "cripple " where towered the tall white oak 

 of the hawks. Both birds were wheeling about 

 the castle nest, their noble flight full of the free- 

 dom of the marsh, their piercing cries voicing 

 its wildness. And how free, how wild, how un- 

 touched by human hands the wide plain seemed ! 

 Sea-like it lay about me, circled southward from 

 east to west with the rim of the sky. 



I moved on toward the bay. The sun had 



dropped to the edge of the marsh, its level-lined 



shafts splintering into golden fire against the 



curtained windows of the lighthouse. It would 



[71] 



