Page:Round the Yule Log.djvu/113

Rh "Be comforted, Peter," said I, "perhaps we shall get the cock of the walk here after all."

"You must know some queer trick or another then," answered Peter; "he is a sly, deep one, and he is shot-proof too, I can tell you."

When we arrived at the knoll, after having crossed the frozen bog, I took — on account of the considerable distance at which the bird would have to be shot at, if he, as we supposed, would settle in the top of the fir tree — the shot out of my gun, and loaded again with a wire cartridge.

Peter looked at this operation, shook his head, and expressed in the following words his want of confidence in it: —

"And you think that will help?"

"We shall see," I answered just as curtly.

The knoll on which we found ourselves appeared like a small island in the big bog. On its summit towered aloft the fir tree which has often been referred to, like a mighty mast, full of wood-peckers' holes. On the eastern side of the knoll was another fir tree, which must have been just as majestic at one time, but was now stooping forward over the bog; the storms had broken its top, and only a few of the lower, almost naked, branches were left, which, like some brawny giant's arms, stretched themselves out against the clear morning sky. The sun was rising; it gilt the hill tops and gradually threw its lustre over the dark pine forests on the mountain slopes. But the Skjœrsjö bog, which in a southerly direction extended so far that the forest at its far end could scarcely be distinguished in the blue hazy mist, was still in the deepest shade. The woodcock, the snipe, and other nocturnal birds were all gone to rest; but the merry songsters of the wood now filled the air with their jubilee; the nutcracker began his monotonous clattering, the chaffinches and the wrens sang high in the sky, the blackcock scolded and blustered loudly, the thrush sang his mocking songs and libellous ditties about everybody, but became occasionally a little sentimental and warbled gently and bashfully some tender stanzas. On the opposite side of the bog a capercailzie was playing in the top of a