Big rushes to the spot with giant leaps; Grey sneaks cautiously after and springs upon the spoil, as if she herself had made the coup. “Terror” swaggers from his hiding-place and fixes his teeth in a wing, the toughness of which almost shakes his conviction that he is the very devil of a fellow!
CHAPTER NINE
THE CANARY
Round the outskirts of the farm the wallflowers crowd in full bloom, flaming and glowing in the nearly risen sun.
A little fox-coloured cat curls in and out among the flowers, sniffing the yellow goose-grass and the purple thyme. With its own inimitable deftness it avoids the dew.
It follows a human “spoor,” the pursuit of which its big brother has long since abandoned on account of its acid smell.
Red reaches a garden; she enters—and now she scents spoor after spoor, all of which lead along the hedge towards a heap of branches, where they stand still for a long time.
She makes, as usual, a thorough investigation, sniffing each single stone and leaf; but this time she is unlucky, and fails to remark a little grey-brown partridge, which now, for the third year in succession, hatches its eggs under the branches on the opposite side of the hedge.
Here, in the leafy soil, the bird has formed its nest. The maid had found it one day when hoeing the weeds from the path, and now she goes there every day to look after her bird.
The ceaseless, soothing rustle of the poplar-leaves and the hollow, satisfied purring of the rye filter through the hedge and distract the scavenger’s attention. Then she surprises a dragon-fly with the morning dew still on its wings....