THE HERON 
always spent much time alone in the woods, 
and the birds and beasts were companions to 
him. Unconsciously he endowed each kind 
with a character, and now the solitary heron's 
nature seemed to tally with his own. But the 
chiefest bond was that the man who had cut 
down the Corriasc's tree, had turned Andy out 
of his house. Andy began to have a fellow 
feeling for the Corr iasc, about this time. 
Thompson, the gamekeeper, used to notice the 
poacher's footprints in the trampled clay round 
the pool, and one evening he took his gun 
thither. It was very still in the glen, and the 
wood-pigeons cooed until it was too dark to see 
the colour of the trees. The keeper sat still in 
the shadow, and the rats came out and scurried 
along the bank. Only there were none to be 
seen under the thorn bush on the other side. 
Perhaps it was a startled rat running to covert 
which had stirred the calm surface into ripples 
just as the keeper approached. 
By and by there was a shriek, and the heron 
flew up the glen. He circled twice round the 
place out of gunshot, and then alighted sus- 
piciously on the dead limb of a pine. The 
keeper brought his gun to his shoulder slowly, 
for the light was failing, and he dared not risk 
a hasty shot. But even as his ringer crooked 
round the trigger, there was a splash which 
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