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It did not occur to him to remember that the woman who hesitates is won; something in her girlish innocence, in her exquisitely sweet candour, filled him with awe. "Dearest!" he said, in so low a voice that, the note of the curlew flying above them sounded loud and shrill by contrast. "Dearest! for you are that to me! I will not press you. I will be content to wait.
I thought I had but fallen asleep in the stern of the Curlew as she lay against the jetty on that Sabbath afternoon. I felt the boat rising and falling gently on the tide. All was quiet, except for the swishing of the water against the planks of the boat. I tried to speak: "Father," I said, thinking he was there on the jetty smoking.
After these thoughts had for some time entertained me, I came to reflect seriously upon the real danger I had been in for so many years in this very island, and how I had walked about in the greatest security, and with all possible tranquillity, even when perhaps nothing but the brow of a hill, a great tree, or the casual approach of night, had been between me and the worst kind of destruction—viz. that of falling into the hands of cannibals and savages, who would have seized on me with the same view as I would on a goat or turtle; and have thought it no more crime to kill and devour me than I did of a pigeon or a curlew.
When he did, all his unaccustomed eye could make out, was a narrow dark line surmounted by a dim tracery of spars that were barely relieved by the white beach behind. Still further beyond rose the towering white lighthouse. "I believe I do see it," he said at length. "Well, that's the Curlew. She's a daisy on the wind, or for that matter sailing free either.
Hawkins inquired as he tugged at the hook. "I am going to run her. Bronson showed me how. It's taking some chance of course. But not so much as tying her up. We've got to have the Richard, Bill. That's all there is to it." Gregory started the motor and, proceeding at quarter-speed, set off to take Bronson to the Curlew.
"Nor does your father say a word in his letter to me about Abram Silt being with him aboard that vessel, the Curlew. Nobody knows what has become of your uncle the man who really owns this store. How do we know but that this this creature," concluded Aunt Euphemia, with dramatic gesture, "has made away with Mr. Silt and taken over his property?"
Pied, dumb-footed shapes, padding along in that soft-eyed, remote world of theirs, with a tall riding splash of red in front, and a tall splash of riding red behind. Then through a gate we came on to the moor, amongst whitened furze. The mist thickened. A curlew was whistling on its invisible way, far up; and that wistful, wild calling seemed the very voice of the day.
A few weeks later a party of English soldiers were surprised by the O'Byrnes in Wicklow, and fled shamefully; while almost at the same moment by a misfortune which was certainly no fault of Essex's, but which went to swell the list of his disasters Sir Conyers Clifford, the gallant governor of Connaught, was defeated by the O'Donnells in a skirmish among the Curlew mountains, and both he and Sir Alexander Ratcliffe, the second in command, left dead upon the field.
The wind went down with the sun, as had been foretold by River Andrew, and the quiet of twilight lay on the level landscape like sleep when the two travellers returned to the seat at the inn door. A distant curlew was whistling cautiously to its benighted mate, but all other sounds were still. The day was over.
Among the water birds are the pelican, the muscovy, and black duck; the spoon-bill, plover, curlew, teal, darter; while herons, ibises, and cranes, are found in great numbers on the shores of the lagoons and rivers.
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