THE HERON 
They had fished there for an hour or more 
when the female heron flew up suspiciously, 
and flapped screaming away into the night. 
The Corr iasc raised his long neck, which was 
sunk between his shoulders, and listened. The 
glen was dark and very silent, but by the strange 
telepathy of the wild he knew that somewhere 
something was watching him. He took no 
chances. He flew heavily across the pool and 
alighted, every nerve a-tingle, on a rock on the 
other side. 
If his ears had been sharper he might have 
heard a disappointed snarl from the bushes as 
a levelled gun was lowered ; but as it was, only 
a drowsy blackbird fluttered as Andy Hogan 
slid down the steep bank to the path screened 
by laurel bushes. 
The heron was dimly visible against the rocks, 
but out of gunshot. Andy began to crawl softly 
through the bushes. Twenty yards further on, 
the little path opened on to the carriage drive, 
and he wriggled noiselessly over the turf. The 
road ran within a few feet of the edge of the 
old quarry, from which it was fenced by some 
wire palings screened by furze bushes. Andy 
worked himself along with infinite caution, 
never allowing his head to appear against the 
sky, and as he crawled evenly and noiselessly he 
cursed Cornelius Geoghegan. His whole heart 
Q 241 
