THE WATER-HEN 
times to the keeping of the water. Perhaps 
that is why the Fur Folk did not drink there 
they recognized their kinsmen. 
Few flowers grew round the Pool, and the 
birds did not often sing there. Rushes and 
marshwort and green things of that kind grew 
on the south and west sides where the water 
was shallow, and long shoots of ivy hung 
down and stirred the surface. 
The people of the Pool were quiet, like the 
place. The rats who lived under the black- 
thorn roots along the bank were sleek and 
well-fed ; the herons, who sometimes went 
a-fishing there on still afternoons, were silent 
anglers : there were few fish in the Pool ex- 
cept the eels who battened in the mud, and grew 
as fat as the rats often upon the same fare. 
The Dark Pool was the only pond in the 
countryside which seldom owned a pair of 
moorhens. Two summers before the year of 
which I write a pair had nested upon it ; and 
sometimes at noon the rats sunned themselves 
on the remains of the old nest which their 
fathers had so persistently robbed that the 
birds had become disheartened and returned to 
the river. The preceding summer no moor- 
hens had visited the place, or else, noting its 
gloom and the banks confined by undergrowth, 
they had departed at once. Hence, as the 
3 
