WILD LIFE ON THE WING 
would have fallen down stark and stiff as the 
pair who lay among the heather at the foot of 
the crag, but, as it happened, that particular 
piece of meat had been less thoroughly 
" doctored " than the rest. It takes much 
poison to kill a hardy scaulcrow, or as James 
Driscoll put it "the divil has an eye to his 
own," and although at one time it looked as 
though Fionog-liat would never suck peewits' 
eggs again, yet the life-flame burnt hardily in 
him, and he did not die. 
When he struggled slowly back from that dim 
land of unconsciousness where nothing is real 
but pain, and there is no desire but for peace, 
the sky was no longer a grey emptiness, but 
was laden with rain, and only two or three 
hours were left to the winter's day. At first 
Fionog-liat believed that he was alone with the 
rocks and the clouds, but as his senses reeled 
back to him he became aware that he was 
watched. One crow was perched on the rock 
above him; the other, on the snow, was nearer 
still. He felt their eyes upon him, and knew 
that they were watching him just as he him- 
self had watched the hare two days before. They 
were starving as he had starved then, and just as 
he had fidgeted impatiently up and down so 
they waited now. He had saved them from the 
man's poison he himself had devoured the 
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