"Do you hear him? how he hisses and threatens?" asked Walter.
"Yes, and it makes me feel disquieted; almost as if he were agitated by human passion; and the contrast with the soft snow of his plumage makes it still more curious.--I could stand here and watch these creatures for hours together. Now let us go and sit in the hut, there is rain coming in those clouds."
And in fact the first large drops were falling; pattering upon the bark roof of the hut; they heard the sweet spring rain, and smelt it, with the scent of a thousand blossoms wafted to them through the little cobweb-curtained window; and as they sat on the only bench, eating their breakfast off the roughhewn table, they looked through the open door over the surface of the water all fretted and rippled by the rain. The birds had ceased their song; and the two sat silent, listening to the splashing and streaming above their heads.
"We can't even see to the other side," she said; "the rain is falling like a thick veil; shutting us out from the rest of the world--which would not be so great a loss after all."
"It looks as if we really were upon some desert island in the deep sea;" he said, gazing on the water; "I only wish that shore were really farther off; and that we were floating far away out of sight."
"A pretty Robinson you would make, to be sure, spoiled boy that you are!"
"Why?--have I not all I want here with me?"
"Yes, till we come to the bottom of the basket, and have emptied our one bottle; after that perhaps we might do battle to the poor swans, and prey upon their eggs; and then the comedy would be over, and the tragedy would begin. I read one, once, about a Count Ugolino, whom they threw into a deep dungeon, with his children, to be starved to death. But I don't think I should like to see it acted; still less, to take a part in it."
He kept his eyes fixed on the little glass she had brought with her, and had now filled for him.
"What man cares to sate his body," he murmured, "if his soul be famished? I should prefer the reverse; should not you?"