none of the other birds
remained for more than a few minutes at a time. They were always busy
in the morning, but in the evening they had more leisure, and would stay
and chat as long as the children wanted them. The awkward thing was that
in the evening all the birds wanted to talk at the same moment, so that
the youngsters never knew which of them to answer. Seumas Beg got out
of that difficulty for a while by learning to whistle their notes, but,
even so, they spoke with such rapidity that he could not by any means
keep pace with them. Brigid could only whistle one note; it was a little
flat "whoo" sound, which the birds all laughed at, and after a few
trials she refused to whistle any more.

While they were sitting two rabbits came to play about in the brush.
They ran round and round in a circle, and all their movements were very
quick and twisty. Sometimes they jumped over each other six or seven
times in succession, and every now and then they sat upright on their
hind legs, and washed their faces with their paws. At other times they
picked up a blade of grass, which they ate with great deliberation,
pretending all the time that it was a complicated banquet of cabbage
leaves and lettuce.

While the children were playing with the rabbits an ancient, stalwart
he-goat came prancing through the bracken. He was an old acquaintance of
theirs, and he enjoyed lying beside them to have his forehead scratched
with a piece of sharp stick. His forehead was hard as rock, and the hair
grew there as sparse as grass does on a wall, or rather the way moss
grows on a wall--it was a mat instead of a crop. His horns were long and
very sharp, and brilliantly polished. On this day the he-goat had two
chains around his neck--one was made of butter-cups and the other was
made of daisies, and the children wondered to each other who it was
could have woven these so carefully. They asked the he-goat this
question, but he only looked at them and did not say a word. The
children liked examining this goat's eyes; they were very big, and of
the queerest light-gray colour. They had a strange steadfast look, and
had also at times a look of queer, deep intelligence, and at other times
they had a fatherly and benevolent expression, and at other times
again, especially when he looked sidewards, they had a mischievous,
light-and-airy, daring, mocking, inviting and terrifying look; but he
always looked brave and unconcerned. When the he-goat's forehe