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"Well, what sport?" "Pas mal, mon cher. Not so bad," is the reply, in a tone of ill-concealed triumph; and plunging his hand into his game-bag, the chasseur produces a phthisical snipe, a wood pigeon, an extenuated quail, and perhaps something which you at first take for a deformed blackbird, but which turns out to be a water-hen.
Mother, father's blood as well as yours is in my veins, and so I understand you both. Poor little mother! Poor little father!" Little Wonder looked these things, she may indeed have thought them; but all she said was: "O mother, what was that?" "That was a rabbit, dear. See, there is another! See his fluffy white tail!" And again: "O mother, what was that?" "That was a water-hen, dear.
Twice a cock-pheasant uttered a drowsy, raucous crow, and there was a blundering of unseen feathery bodies among the spruce, while, when this ceased, he heard a water-hen flutter with feet splashing across a hidden pool.
"I wonder whether there's a bridge," thought Hilary, as he looked at the smooth dark water, dotted with the broad leaves of the yellow water-lily, and amidst the herbage of whose banks a sooty-looking water-hen was walking delicately upon its long thin green toes, darting its crimson-shielded head forward and flicking its white black-barred tail at every step.
They are all handsome, the smallest not so large as the English water-hen. In the savannas, too, you will sometimes surprise the snow-white egret, whose back is adorned with the plumes from which it takes its name. Here, too, the spur-winged water-hen, the blue and green water-hen and two other species of ordinary plumage are found.
What seems plainer than that the long toes, not furnished with membrane, of the Grallatores, are formed for walking over swamps and floating plants. The water-hen and landrail are members of this order, yet the first is nearly as aquatic as the coot, and the second is nearly as terrestrial as the quail or partridge.
The snipe, the woodcock, the curlew, most of the sandpipers, together with the coot and the water-hen, are distinct from those of Europe, and are not only peculiar to America, but few of them have been found to the south of the line.
We used to stay for hours listening to its murmur, to the sharp, strange cry of the swans that were kept there, and the twitter of the water-hen to her young among the reeds. Then the father would come to us and remain a few minutes fondling Muriel, and telling me how things went on at the mill.
Presently, the dead water-hen floated out of sight, and he roused himself, straightened his clothes, which had been somewhat torn and deranged, and, with a steady step and a fixed smile upon his lips, went forward, no longer at a run, but walking quietly up the path that led to the big oak and shaded glen. In five minutes he was there. Again he paused and looked. There was something to see.
Even the dingy Midland landscape, with its smoke-blackened woods and lifeless grass, assumed a glory of great light; the soft, interlacing clouds parted before the dying sun; the water received the golden flood, and each coot and water-hen shone jet and glossy in the blaze.
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