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The profound stillness of the sky-bounded plain, only broken by the plash of the waterfowl, or the distant howl of the savanna wolf, and the splendour of the rising sun, imparted an indescribable solemnity and grandeur to the scene.
Now, while his forgotten biscuits scorched and he listened to Tommy Ashe and Sophie Carr taking their toll of meat from the flocks of waterfowl, he was thinking over what Carr had said. He dissented. Oh, he dissented with a vigor that was almost bitterness, because the smiling quirk of Sam Carr's lips when he uttered the last sentence gave it something of a personal edge.
For instance, I have often looked at swans at the hour of sunset, on the water and off it, or flying, and have frequently had them between me and the level sun, yet never have I been favoured with the sight of the rose-coloured, the red, and the golden-yellow varieties of that majestic waterfowl, whose natural colour is white. On the other hand, who ever saw a carrion-crow with crimson eyes?
From the windows of the old house he would have loved to listen to the splash of the trout, the cawing of the rooks, and the quack of the waterfowl, while all the air is filled with the cooing of doves and the songs of birds.
At dawn they pushed into the sinuous channel of Lone Moose, breasting its slow current with steady strokes, startling flocks of waterfowl at every bend, gliding hour after hour along this shadowy waterway that split the hushed reaches of the woods. It was very still and very somber and a little uncanny. The creek was but a thread in that illimitable forest which pressed so close on either hand.
Having traversed this part of the wood, they once more emerged upon the main stream of the Amazon. It was covered with waterfowl.
Nearly all these waterfowl, though seen on dry land to much the same disadvantage as fish out of water, are exceedingly graceful in either air or water, though not all ducks are as capable of diving as the name would imply.
A lake in the centre of this luxurious vegetation, placid as sleep itself, only stirred by the webbed feet of waterfowl, or the wings of dipping swallows, with above and below a brawling rivulet, here and there showing cascades like the tails of white horses, or the skirts of ballroom belles floating through waltz or gallopade. In correspondence with these fair sights are the sounds heard.
He, too, began to feel the subtle stillness of the drowsing woodland; musing there, caressing his short, crisp mustache, he watched the purple grackle walking about in iridescent solitude, the sun spots waning and glowing on the grass; he heard the soft, garrulous whimper of waterfowl along the water's edge, the stir of leaves above.
He led her over the ridge to the marshy shores of Gray Lake, a dismal body of water over which the waterfowl circled endlessly and the loons shrieked their maniacal cries. He noticed, with some apprehension, that many sea birds had taken to the lake for refuge, gulls and their fellows.
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