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His view was across the course of the burn, then over a piece of plain moorland, to a gap between two hills; nothing moved but grouse, and some cattle who slowly traversed his field of view, heading northward: he heard the psalms, and sang words of his own to the savage and melancholy music; for he had his own design in hand, and terror and cowardice prevailed in his bosom alternately, like the hot and the cold fit of an ague.
Near Port Jervis, last year a wild ruffed grouse nested and reared a large brood in the garden of Mr. W.I. Mitchell, within two feet of the foundation of the house. On the Bull River in the wilds of British Columbia two trappers of my acquaintance, Mack Norboe and Charlie Smith, once formed a friendship with a wild weasel.
Only one good-sized animal, so far as known, is now peculiar to the British Isles, and that is our familiar friend the red grouse of the Scotch moors.
'Tis a fine spring night, and the black grouse at play on the hilltops; the homely sound makes the emigrant lose courage for a moment. "'Tis a fine night," says he. "You better turn back now, Sivert," says he. "H'm," says Sivert, and goes on with him.
The day had been bright and sunshiny, but the temperature was low and the fish had gone to deeper waters. It was a dismal camp. The single grouse we had for supper served only to increase our craving for food. And there we were, with less than two pounds of pea meal on hand and the fish deserting us, more than one hundred and fifty miles from the post at Northwest River.
'I must regularly stalk them, thought Arthur. Noiselessly creeping on, he was suddenly brought to by an unexpected sight. The head and horns of a noble buck were for a moment visible through the thicket. Arthur's heart throbbed in his ears as he stood perfectly motionless. Grouse were utterly forgotten in the vision of venison.
Our sense of smell is not so keen as that of a dog, who can detect the tiny quail while they are still invisible; nor have we the piercing sight of the eagle who spies the grouse crouching hundreds of feet beneath his circling flight; but when we walk through the bare December woods there is unfolded at last to our eyes evidence of the late presence of our summer's feathered friends air castles and tree castles of varied patterns and delicate workmanship.
There were also two species of grouse and a ground pigeon, all good eating. Amongst the smaller birds were trogons, mot-mots, toucans, and woodpeckers. The trogons are general feeders. I have taken from their crops the remains of fruits, grasshoppers, beetles, termites, and even small crabs and land shells. Three species are not uncommon in the forest around Santo Domingo.
He scarcely mentioned Gabrielle, except as the only witness of the accident, and the Radway family returned to England with their son's body, satisfied that he had gone to Roscarna for the grouse shooting on the invitation of people who, in spite of their questionable appearance, were actually connected with the Halbertons, and thankful that no element of intrigue or passion had any part in the tragedy.
He had the hunter's patience, and was capable of creeping on his knees in the mud for hours in the attempt to kill a duck. He could imitate almost all the birds and animals he knew. His whistle would call the mother grouse to him. He could stop the whooping of cranes in their steady flight, and his honking deceived the wary geese.
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