When the visitors stood looking at the great staring-eyed, one-horned beast, the place was quite well, and but for the one-sided appearance given to him by the ragged stump having been sawn short off, there was no trace of the feat he had performed in rushing at the gate.
There was so much to see at the farm that Mr Inglis had a hard matter to get away; besides which, the farmer and his dame were very anxious that they should all stay to tea, and the lads had not the slightest objection; but Mr Inglis said, when they came out for a specified purpose they ought no to turn aside from it, and now; as they had paid their visit to the farm, as previously arranged, they ought to return to their collecting, for the moths would now be coming out fast.
At last they were off, and this time took their way across the meadows by the river side, so as to get to the wood again a couple of miles nearer home, Mr Inglis considering that several pleasing objects of natural history might here be collected.
They had not gone far before he called the attention of the boys to the Ephemene or Mayflies dancing up and down in their beautiful light over the banks of the stream. Beautiful little objects they seemed, with their spotted wings and three tails, as straight up they flew rapidly for five or six feet, and then, spreading out wings and tails, allowed themselves, without effort, but with evenly balanced bodies, to sink down again, presenting a beautiful appearance as the fast descending sun shone sideways upon them.
Fred could have stopped for half an hour watching these Mayflies, but time was flying as well, and they had to get home to tea; but two or three fine specimens were captured by Mr Inglis and put safely in as many pill-boxes, and during their stay as many more were snapped up by the fish in the river. Then on the party went again towards the wood, capturing insect treasures as they passed through the pleasant green meadows and by hedge-rows, all now of a bright golden green with the rays of the sinking sun. Now it was a great stag-beetle that was caught—a great horny-headed and horny-bodied fellow, so strong that he could force his way out of a closed hand by sheer pushing, like his friend the cockchafer, who now began to whirr and drone about under the shady boughs of the trees, but who would not come near enough to be captured, till at last one of them came bump up against Mr Inglis’s hat, in its headlong flight, when Fred picked it out of the grass where it had fallen, and was astonished at the slow but strenuous efforts the insect made to escape.
As they came up to the wood Fred stopped short, for from out of its dark recesses came a peculiar whirring sound, as if somebody was busy with a spinning-wheel.
“Chur–r–r–r–r–r–r–r–r,” went the noise, rising and falling, now farther off, now nearer, and all the time kept up with the greatest regularity.
“Whatever is that?” said Fred to his cousins.
“Oh!” said Harry, laughing, “that’s old Dame Durden spinning her yarn.”
“What?” said Fred incredulously.