an upper upon a lower
eyelid, shutting in the gaze of the evening sun. She was about to return
before dusk came on, when she heard a commotion in the air immediately
behind and above her head. The saunterer looked up and saw a wild-duck
flying along with the greatest violence, just in its rear being another
large bird, which a countryman would have pronounced to be one of the
biggest duck-hawks that he had ever beheld. The hawk neared its intended
victim, and the duck screamed and redoubled its efforts.

Ethelberta impulsively started off in a rapid run that would have made a
little dog bark with delight and run after, her object being, if
possible, to see the end of this desperate struggle for a life so small
and unheard-of. Her stateliness went away, and it could be forgiven for
not remaining; for her feet suddenly became as quick as fingers, and she
raced along over the uneven ground with such force of tread that, being a
woman slightly heavier than gossamer, her patent heels punched little D's
in the soil with unerring accuracy wherever it was bare, crippled the
heather-twigs where it was not, and sucked the swampy places with a sound
of quick kisses.

Her rate of advance was not to be compared with that of the two birds,
though she went swiftly enough to keep them well in sight in such an open
place as that around her, having at one point in the journey been so near
that she could hear the whisk of the duck's feathers against the wind as
it lifted and lowered its wings. When the bird seemed to be but a few
yards from its enemy she saw it strike downwards, and after a level
flight of a quarter of a minute, vanish. The hawk swooped after, and
Ethelberta now perceived a whitely shining oval of still water, looking
amid the swarthy level of the heath like a hole through to a nether sky.

Into this large pond, which the duck had been making towards from the
beginning of its precipitate flight, it had dived out of sight. The
excited and breathless runner was in a few moments close enough to see
the disappointed hawk hovering and floating in the air as if waiting for
the reappearance of its prey, upon which grim pastime it was so intent
that by creeping along softly she was enabled to get very near the edge
of the pool and witness the conclusion of the episode. Whenever the duck
was under the necessity of showing its head to breathe, the other bird
would dart towards it, invariably too late, however; for the div