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Page 57
"To protect the eggs; they are there in the sand, and she is
keeping off all the water-people who like eggs for breakfast."
They drifted on again in silence: what was there good enough to
say in such a place?
Hildegarde pulled the transparent stems of jewel-weed, with their
glowing, pitcher-shaped blossoms, and twined them into a garland,
which she hung over the bow of the canoe. "Dear Cheemaun!" she
said. "She shall be decorated as Hiawatha's was. She deserves to
be hung with real jewels."
"Are there any more real than these?" said Roger. "And--you really
like the Cheemaun, do you, Miss Hilda? and the place? I thought
you would like the place."
"Oh!" said Hilda, and her voice said enough. "How did you find it?
How strange that I have never heard of it before! There is nothing
so beautiful in the world, I am sure! Have the others been here?"
"N--no," answered Roger, slowly. "I don't think they have been
here. I--I found it one morning, when I was shooting, two or three
years ago; and I am afraid I have been greedy, and kept it to
myself."
"How good of you to bring me!" cried Hilda. "I like it all the
better because no one--that is, because it is so lonely and still.
You--you don't shoot now much, do you, Captain Roger?"
"No. I used to be very fond of it when I was a boy; but now, well,
I would rather see them alive, don't you know?"
Hildegarde nodded her wise little head, and knew very well indeed,
and thought the Captain was very right.
"I do not see how a sportsman can really love creatures," she
said. "If you love them, you want them to live, as you say. Oh!
oh, Captain Roger, please quickly stop! Look! What wonder is
this?"
Hilda's voice sank to a whisper, thrilled with excitement. There,
a few yards away from them, ashen grey against the silver-grey of
a dead tree, was a great bird. To Hilda's excited fancy, it seemed
the spirit of the place, changed by some wizardry into bird form,
crouching there amid the ruins of the forest where once it had
flitted and frolicked, a gauze-winged sprite.
Roger, less imaginative, and more skilled in wood-lore, saw a
great blue heron, sitting huddled together on a stump, its head
drawn in, its yellow eyes glaring wild with fright.
"It must be wounded!" he said softly. "Keep very still, and I will
see if we can come nearer."
Softly, slowly, the birch canoe stole through the water. It
scarcely seemed to move, yet every moment brought them nearer to
the wild creature of the woods. It made no attempt to fly, only
crouched lower, and tried to flatten itself against the stump.
"Oh, poor, poor thing!" whispered Hilda. "Can you do anything for
it, Captain Roger?"
"Only one thing, I fear," said Roger, gently. "Its leg is broken,
and we must not leave it in misery."
"You must kill it? Oh, it seems too pitiful! No, I am not going to
be silly, only I will turn my head away, please, Captain Roger."
Now she could have put her hand on the wounded bird, as it sat
motionless, only the wide eyes of terror telling that it was
alive. The bow of the boat passed close against the log, and on
beyond. Hilda thought she should never forget the dumb agony of
those eyes. They should not be here at all, she thought. It was
not decent for human beings to thrust themselves into the sorrows
and mysteries of the woods and water. She could not--
Roger leaned forward, paddle in hand; a moment, and all was over.
Something slid into the water, and there was a little plashing
murmur among the reeds; then stillness again.
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