they flew to and fro, and
before night came they had almost reached the roof.

But before night came, the hermit had begun to watch them more and
more. He followed them on their journeys; he scolded them when they
built foolishly; he was furious when the wind disturbed their work;
and least of all could he endure that they should take any rest.

Then the sun set, and the birds went to their old sleeping place in
among the rushes.

Let him who crosses the heath at night bend clown until his face
comes on a level with the tufts of grass, and he will see a strange
spectacle outline itself against the western sky. Owls with great,
round wings skim over the ground, invisible to any one standing
upright. Snakes glide about there, lithe, quick, with narrow heads
uplifted on swanlike necks. Great turtles crawl slowly forward,
hares and water-rats flee before preying beasts, and a fox bounds
after a bat, which is chasing mosquitos by the river. It seems as
if every tuft has come to life. But through it all the little birds
sleep on the waving rushes, secure from all harm in that
resting-place which no enemy can approach, without the water
splashing or the reeds shaking and waking them.

When the morning came, the wagtails believed at first that the
events of the day before had been a beautiful dream.

They had taken their landmarks and flew straight to their nest,
but it was gone. They flew searching over the heath and rose up
into the air to spy about. There was not a trace of nest or tree.
At last they lighted on a couple of stones by the river bank and
considered. They wagged their long tails and cocked their heads on
one side. Where had the tree and nest gone?

But hardly had the sun risen a handsbreadth over the belt of trees
on the other bank, before their tree came walking and placed itself
on the same spot where it had been the day before. It was just as
black and gnarled as ever and bore their nest on the top of
something, which must be a dry, upright branch.

Then the wagtails began to build again, without troubling
themselves any more about nature's many wonders.

Hatto the hermit, who drove the little children away from his hole
telling them that it had been best for them if they had never been
born, he who rushed out into the mud to hurl curses after the
joyous young people who rowed up the stream in pleasure-boats, he
from whose angry eyes the shepherds on the heath guarded their
flocks, did not return t