Page:The Swiss Family Robinson (Kingston).djvu/90

60 while they gave me charge of the water flask, and a small hatchet.

“Leaving everything in as good order as we could at the tent, we proceeded towards the stream, accompanied by the dogs. Turk, who had accompanied you on your first expedition, seemed immediately to understand that we wished to pursue the same route, and proudly led the way.

“As I looked at my two young sons, each with his gun, and considered how much the safety of the party depended on these little fellows, I felt grateful to you, dear husband, for having acquainted them in childhood with the use of fire-arms.

“Filling our water-jar, we crossed the stream, and went on to the height from whence, as you described, a lovely prospect is obtained, at the sight of which a pleasurable sensation of buoyant hope, to which I had long been a stranger, awoke within my breast.

“A pretty little wood in the distance attracted my notice particularly, and thither we directed our course. But soon finding it impossible to force our way through the tall strong grass, which grew in dense luxuriance higher than the children's heads, we turned towards the open beach on our left, and following it we reached a point much nearer the little wood, when, quitting the strand, we made towards it.

“We had not entirely escaped the tall grass, however, and with the utmost fatigue and difficulty were struggling through the reeds, when suddenly a great rushing noise terrified us all dreadfully. A very large and powerful bird sprang upward on the wing. Both boys attempted to take aim, but the bird was far away before they were ready to fire.

“ ‘Oh dear, what a pity!’ exclaimed Ernest; ‘now if I had only had my light gun, and if the bird had not flown quite so fast, I should have brought him down directly!’

“ ‘Oh yes,’ said I, ‘no doubt you would be a capital sportsman