t the meadows; and he watched them stalking about in
their sober quaker coats, or rising on slow heavy wing, and
lumbering away home with a weird cry. He heard the strong pinions
of the wood pigeon in the air, and then from the trees above his
head came the soft call, "Take-two-cow-Taffy,
take-two-cow-Taffy," with which that fair and false bird is said
to have beguilled the hapless Welchman to the gallows. Presently,
as he lay motionless, the timid and graceful little water-hens
peered out from their doors in the rushes opposite, and, seeing
no cause for fear, stepped daintily into the water, and were
suddenly surrounded by little bundles of black soft down, which
went paddling about in and out of the weeds, encouraged by the
occasional sharp, clear, parental "keck-keck," and merry little
dabchicks popped up in mid-stream, and looked round, and nodded
at him, pert and voiceless, and dived again; even old cunning
water-rats sat up on the bank with round black noses and gleaming
eyes, or took solemn swims out, and turned up their tails and
disappeared for his amusement. A comfortable low came at
intervals from the cattle, revelling in the abundant herbage. All
living things seemed to be disporting themselves, and enjoying,
after their kind, the last gleams of the sunset, which were
making the whole vault of heaven glow and shimmer; and, as he
watched them, Tom blessed his stars as he contrasted the
river-side with the glare of lamps and the click of balls in the
noisy pool room.

Before it got dark he bethought him of making sure of his
position once more; matters might have changed since he chose it
before dinner. With all that he could extract from the keeper,
and his own experience in such matters, it had taken him several
hours' hunting up and down the river that afternoon before he had
hit on a night-line. But he had persevered, knowing that this was
the only safe evidence to start from, and at last had found
several, so cunningly set that it was clear that it was a
first-rate artist in the poaching line against whom he had pitted
himself. These lines must have been laid almost under his nose on
that very day, as the freshness of the baits proved. The one
which he had selected to watch by was under the bank, within a
few yards of the clump of alders where he was now sitting. There
was no satisfactory cover near the others; so he had chosen this
one, where he would be perfectly concealed behind the nearest
trunk f