Page:The clerk of the woods.djvu/111

Rh field-glass brought him near enough to show all the beauty of his spots.

He was well worth looking at ("What short work a gunner would make of him!" I kept repeating to myself), but I could not stay. Titlark voices were in the air. The birds must be plentiful on the grassy hills beyond; with them there might be Lapland longspurs; and I followed the road. This presently brought me to a bit of pebbly beach, along which I was carelessly walking when a lisping sound caused me to glance down at my feet. There on the edge of the water was a bunch of seven sandpipers; white-rumps, as I soon made out, though my first thought had been of something else. One of them hobbled upon one leg, but the others seemed thus far to have escaped injury. There they stood, huddled together as if on purpose for some pot-shooter's convenience, while I drew them within arm's length; pretty creatures, lovely in their foolish innocence; more or less nervous under my inspection, but holding their ground, each with its long black bill pointed against the breeze. "We who are about to die salute you," they might have been saying.