Mr. Harrod held out a warning hand behind him as he crept forward gently on tiptoe, and I was obliged to be silent, although I was particularly anxious to speak. Presently he beckoned to me to advance, and as I did so I saw the hen-bird running along the bank as close to the ground as possible, while in a furrow close by my feet lay the pretty, gray-spotted eggs that we were looking for.
Mr. Harrod turned and looked at me with a little smile, which I chose to think was one of triumph. "That proves nothing," said I. "I call that bird a plover, a green plover. I can't help it if you call it something else. Of course, I know there's another sort of plover; the golden plover, but no one could confuse the two, for this one has got a crest on its head which it lifts up and down when it likes."
"Oh, I beg your pardon," answered he. "I see you know all about it. It's only a confusion of terms."
I flushed and stooped down to pick up the eggs.
"No, don't," said he; "let the poor thing have them. You will see, she will fly back as soon as we have gone away."
We stepped back into the path, and surely, in a moment, the two parents met in the air, tumbling over together, and still uttering their plaintive cry. Then presently the hen-bird floated down again and returned to her patient duty; and soon her mate followed her also, and both were hidden among the rushes.
I turned round with a little laugh. I had thought I was annoyed; but the fact is, I was too happy to be annoyed.
The panoply of a tender gray sky, fashioned of many and many soft clouds, floating over and past one another, and lightening a little where the sun should have been, was spread over the placid ground; the sea was gray, too, beyond the flats, melting into the gray sky, the white headland in the distance, and the gray towers along the shore seemed very near and distinct; sheep wandered up and down the banks of the dike, cropping steadily; the air was soft and kindly. My heart beat with a sense of satisfaction that was unlike anything I had ever felt before; and yet many was the time that I had been out on the marsh on just such a soft day, among the birds and the beasts whom I loved.
"Listen," said I, presently, breaking the pleasant silence, as a loud, screaming bird's note, by no means beautiful, but full of delightful associations, came across the marsh. "The swifts are beginning to sing; that means summer indeed."
A little company of the lovely black birds came towards us, flying wildly in circles above the dike, sipping the water as they skimmed its surface, and then away again over the meadows.