Page:The clerk of the woods.djvu/115

Rh discourse," so wise and good that he naturally thinks of the Creator of all things as a person very like himself, finds it amusing to kill.

And when I came to the few rods of beach, there stood my seven sandpipers, exactly as before. They stirred uneasily under my gaze, whispering a few words to one another ("Will he shoot, do you think?"), but they kept their places, bunched closely together for safety. Did they know anything about their lonely brother—or sister—up yonder on the hillside? If they noticed her absence, they probably supposed her dead. Death is so common and so sudden, especially in migration time.

Now I am back again on a grassy mound by the muddy flats, and the big plover is still here. How alert he looks as he sees me approach! Yet now, as an hour ago, he shows no inclination to fly. The tide is coming in fast. He steps about in the deepening water with evident discomfort, and whether he will or not, he must soon take to wing or wade ashore. And while I am