Page:Christmas Fireside Stories.djvu/84

 A Day witi-i the Cafercailzies. 72 however, about all those bears, which malicious ton^ues reported he had missed, and which according to the same good authority exceeded the number he had shot. " But what sort of a fellow is this big, old bird, you are speaking about ? " I asked. "Fil tell you all about him," said the captain quickly, as wc started on our way for the dairy. He was apparently afraid that this curt, ill-timed question of mine would, after the short ac quaintance I had with Peter, create a suspicion in his mmd and probably silence him altogether. " I*ll tell you about him," con tinued the captain, " there is an old capercailzie cock on this pairing ground, which has become the talk of the whole parish, —a sort of a goblin-bird in fact. The sportsmen about here call him the he flies often about between the top of the fir-trees, bleating like a goat. Not before this performance is over does he settle down to play, and commence gobbling and snapping his beak. Well, that kind of playing, there's little sense in, and nobody can come within shot of him. He plays us, however, still oftener another trick, which is still worse ; he sits quietly and plays, and he commences his gobbling, but when he ought to begin his snapping, he flies to another tree. If anybody by chance happens to hit him, the shot has no effect. Our friend Peter here, has shot at him both with salt and silver, but although the feathers flew out, he didn't seem to take any more notice of the shot than if the charge had been a blank one. The next morning he played away as fast as ever and out of tune as usual." "You might "as well shoot at a stone," said Peter, with the decisive tone of one fully convinced. " I came across him once," he continued, " when he was playing down on the main road to Skaug; there he sat in the middle of the road with a lot of hens around him, — I counted seven, and there were more round about in the wood, for I heard them clucking and calling behind everybush. The hens on the ground ran around him, stretched out their necks, trailed their wings along the ground and showed themselves off for him, but he sat on the ground and preened his feathers, and made
 * bleater,' for instead of sitting quiet on his branch and playing,