THE WOODCOCK 
Creaman was taking a sun-bath under a holly- 
tree, exposing his flanks alternately to the 
genial warmth, when they found him. He paid 
no attention to the Man ; the dog he treated 
as a fox. That is to say, he allowed it to 
approach within a few feet of him, and then 
rose leisurely, wondering why it did not spring. 
There was a deafening report and a whirl as of 
invisible hail enveloped him. Creaman threw 
himself sideways and skimmed obliquely 
between two branches, and the second shot 
clipped the twigs above his head. He whirled 
down the wood in panic at a rate of sixty 
miles an hour, and dropped into a thick furze 
hedge. It was a peaceful place but for the 
pigmy squabbling of the shrew-mice, and he 
dozed there until evening. 
The night was mild with a foggy moon. The 
hill of Scarabeg stood over against the wood, 
steep and black. The golden plover flew 
thither piping very joyfully and Creaman also 
went up the mountain. It is shaggy with 
gorse and ling, and nothing lives there in 
summer but a few rabbits and the unhunted 
foxes which stalk them : in winter the snipe 
and the curlew and the plover and other water- 
loving things go to its bog-capped summit to 
drink and bathe in brown peat water, spangled 
with the reflections of stars. The clefts in the 
8$ 
