Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 2).djvu/151

 sedges, and she saw a water-rail, arrived before his female, look around him, calling, and wearing his little mind out with seeking her high and low upon the waters of his favoured pool, she all the while most likely flying steadily and faithfully towards him, but afar off where he could not see her, and where, perhaps, a shot would lay her low and widow his tender constancy.

All these, and many another welcome and well-known comrade, she saw as she struck across the moors and thickets, and the black heads of the buffaloes pushed themselves up above the red-berried briony, and the wild swine began to sniff for the first acorns of the scarlet-oak, and the beautiful buck fled across the sunlight, made timid in his innocence because man has so much of the devil and spares nothing.

She was so glad to see them all again.

It seemed to her ages since she had been free to run and loiter at choice amidst these green solitudes. But she could only give them a glance and a smile; she was bound, or she thought so, to be no longer away from the tombs than she could help. Her voluntary loyalty to the man she sheltered was like a chain upon her foot that was