THE WATER-HEN 
Considering that in the woods most hunting is 
conducted silently, there had been a vast com- 
motion round the Pool ; and the vixen, who 
disliked publicity upon her hunting, especially 
when it was unsuccessful, retired immediately, 
but it was a long while before Cearc-uise had 
done crying aloud about her plight and her 
escape. Then, for the first time, she heard a 
lonely voice piping plaintively under the alder, 
and when her mother-love overcame her 
distrust of the place and she went and searched 
there, she found the last chick paddling dis- 
tractedly round and round, beside an addled 
egg- 
That night the Pool held more moorhens than 
it had done for many months. 
VIII 
Karruck and Cearc-uise had accomplished 
what no moorhen sojourning on the Dark Pool 
had done for two summers they had hatched 
their second brood safely ; but it was another 
matter to rear them. 
The rats sat at their burrows' mouths, and 
watched the moorhens feed in the crowfoot beds 
at dawn, as the audience sits in the boxes at 
the theatre to watch the play. As long as 
the chicks paddled in the open water, or nested 
21 
