Page:Cornelia Meigs--The Pool of Stars.djvu/87

 now, and through bramble hedges, past a stream or two and even into a swampy meadow where the green sod sank under Elizabeth's footsteps and left muddy pools that sucked at her shoes. Finally a farmer's cottage at the edge of a river came in sight and, to her relief here, the running fight seemed to have come to an end. She saw the wild crows perching and rocking on the boughs of a big tree before the gate, cawing in such shrill-voiced anger that she was certain they must have been somehow robbed of their prey. As she came panting into the farmyard she observed there was a pigeonhouse high up under the peak of the barn roof and it was plain, from the way in which the astonished white birds were bursting out of doors and windows, that it was in their dwelling that the harassed and desperate Dick had taken refuge.

A surprised farmer, not knowing quite what to make of such a breathless and disheveled stranger, led her up the narrow stairs that climbed to the pigeon loft and opened the door upon the rows of perches and nests. Dick came fluttering to her at once, a weary and bedraggled bird, with his bright plumage torn and his head bleeding and plucked almost bare. She held him carefully as she picked her way down the steep stairs again, unable to help laughing at his croaking attempts to tell just what had happened.