WILD LIFE ON THE WING 
the Pool grew deeper, until there were quite 
three feet of water under the foundations. 
Every evening saw the task almost completed, 
but each morning more flotsam must be added 
to make good the rise of the water during the 
night. At last it was finished, however, and 
then Cearc-uise began to sit upon six eggs. 
It was then that she found out how gloomy 
and how shut in by trees the Dark Pool was. 
Hemlocks pushed their way up among the 
bushes : they each showed a tuft of plumy 
green leaves, but last summer's dead stalks still 
stood up stiffly like dry bones. A man could 
not have pushed through the brittle stems 
without alarming the whole woodside, but 
other quieter people, every whit as dangerous, 
hunted through them nightly. 
April was often wet, but towards the end of the 
month the weather gradually cleared up, and 
sometimes the sun shone in the middle of the 
day. Karruck used to go and sun himself on 
the south side of the Pool where there was a 
little grassy place which the rabbits kept 
gnawed smooth ; but Cearc-uise could not 
leave her eggs, and she only enjoyed the sun- 
shine for a quarter of an hour at midday, when 
the beams found their way through the 
branches overhead and warmed her a little. 
She sat so closely that on the tenth day she was 
12 
