There was a whizzing of
wing-beats in the air; two large birds swept
over their heads and struck down into the copse
whence the sound had issued.
"This is indeed a most singular thing," said
Augusta, under her breath, and with wide-eyed wonder.
"Let us go nearer, and see what it can be."
"I am sure I can go if you can," responded
Arnfinn, not any too eagerly. "Give me your
hand, and we can climb the better."
As they approached the pine copse, which
projected like a promontory from the line of
the denser forest, the noise ceased, and only the
plaintive whistling of a mountain-hen, calling
her scattered young together, and now and then
the shrill response of a snipe to the cry of its
lonely mate, fell upon the summer night, not as
an interruption, but as an outgrowth of the very
silence. Augusta stole with soundless tread
through the transparent gloom which lingered
under those huge black crowns, and Arnfinn
followed impatiently after. Suddenly she motioned
to him to stand still, and herself bent forward
in an attitude of surprise and eager observation.
On the ground, some fifty steps from
where she was stationed, she saw a man
stretched out full length, with a knapsack under
his head, and surrounded by a flock of downy,
half-grown birds, which responded with a low,
anxious piping to his alluring cluck, then scattered
with sudden alarm, only to return again
in the same curious, cautious fashion as before.
Now and then there was a great flapping of
wings in the trees overhead, and a heavy brown
and black speckled mountain-hen alighted close
to the man's head, stretched out her neck toward
him, cocked her head, called her scattered brood
together, and departed with slow and deliberate
wing-beats.
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