But the shepherd had gone up to his dog and was peering carefully into the heather. Then he beckoned Fiona.
"Does Miss Fiona see the bird?" he asked, pointing.
Fiona looked long before she saw. The woodcock had squeezed himself right into the roots of a frost-covered clump of heather, and even when the heather was parted nothing showed but his little orange tail, with its white and black points.
"Shall I catch him for Miss Fiona?" asked the shepherd; and Fiona said, "Oh yes, please, if you will."
The shepherd knelt down and brought his two great hands slowly to either side of the tuft of heather; then he closed them with a snap, and drew out the largest woodcock Fiona had ever seen. It struggled and thrashed at his wrists with its powerful wings.
"Will Miss Fiona take the bird now?" he said. "Just behind the wings, with her thumbs on its back."
So Fiona took her bird, and as she did so its back-seeing eye caught the glint of her copper bangle. It stopped thrashing with its wings and lay quite still in her hands.
"Oh, I say," he said, "why didn't you say before, instead of employing these people and frightening an honest bird out of his senses?"
"My dogs couldn't find you," said Fiona. "And I think it was so good of the shepherd to find you for me."
"Shepherd!" said the woodcock. "That wasn't a shepherd. And it wasn't a collie either."