“Hist!” came from Dave, who uttered the imitation of the peewit’s whistle again, and a couple more of the flap-winged birds came slowly over the grey-looking water, which to anyone else, with its patches of drab dry weeds and bared patches of black bog, would have seemed to be a terrible scene of desolation, whereas it was a place of enchantment to the boys.
“They come precious slowly,” said Dick at last. “I thought that there would have been quite a crowd of birds, like you see them sometimes. Look at the old bald-heads, Tom.”
He pointed to a party of about half a dozen coots which came slowly out of the reeds and then sailed on again as if suspicious of all being not quite right.
Then there was another little flock of ducks streaming over the fen in the distance, and their cries came faintly as they dashed into the water, as if returning home after a long absence.
“There goes a her’n,” whispered Tom, who was not very good at seeing birds and worse at telling what they were.
“’Tisn’t,” cried Dick; “it’s only a grey crow.”
“If you two go on chattering like that we shall get no birds,” said Dave sharply. “What a pair o’ ruck-a-toongues you are; just like two owd women!”
“Well, but the birds are so long coming,” said Dick; “I’m getting the cramp. I say, Dave, are there any butterbumps (bitterns) close here?”
“Plenty; only they wean’t show theirsens. Hah!”
They had been waiting a couple of hours, and the peewit’s cry had been uttered from time to time, but only a straggler or two had landed upon the strip of land. Dick had been eager to capture these, but Dave shook his head. It wasn’t worth while to set the net and peg out decoys and stales, he said, to catch two pie-wipes that weren’t enough for a man’s dinner.