THE PHEASANT 
II 
Creaban roosted on the limb of an oak-tree, 
and when the dawn-wind stirred the woods and 
set them swaying and sighing, his perch jarred 
and creaked against its neighbour and woke 
him. It was still dark, although a glamour in 
the eastern sky told of the sunrise to be ; and 
Creaban, believing himself to be the first bird 
astir, would have tucked his bill away among 
his feathers again had not a distant call suddenly 
startled him broad awake. 
Then, for the first time, he heard that War of 
Wartburg which is waged from every hen 
roost up and down the countryside at dawn. 
The cock from Dromore, on the other side of 
the valley, began the chorus, as was his custom, 
before one could tell a black hen from a grey, 
and it was taken up by every rooster for two 
miles round. Every morning they uttered 
the same old declamation, and gave the same 
answers to their neighbours. The Tonsella 
cock had never seen his rival at Dromore, but he 
knew him as well as if they both inhabited the 
same yard. Both were madly jealous of one 
another; for each was led to believe that his 
rival was a bird of great prowess and good 
fortune, who inhabited the finest manure-heap 
in Ireland, and had an untold following of 
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