disconsolate, wailing cry far out to sea. Some dark heron or bittern rose croaking from beside the lagoon, then flapped awkwardly away. I felt the girl’s hand on my arm as she drew closer to my side. [Pg 44] [Pg 44] A worthy place—this manor house of Nealman. Vague thoughts, not quite in keeping with the ordered dimensions of life, had hold of my mind. Presently the girl’s grip tightened, and she pointed toward the lagoon. I saw her face before I followed her gesture. I didn’t get the idea that she was frightened. Rather she was smiling, quietly, and her eyes glistened. Seventy yards out, and perhaps fifteen yards back from the Bridge, great bubbles were bursting upward through the blue-green troubled waters. Some mysterious action of the currents, stirred by the tides, was the unquestioned cause; yet both of us were stirred by the same fancy. It was as if some great, air-breathing sea-monster was exhaling beneath the waves. [Pg 45] [Pg 45] CHAPTER VI The next two weeks sped by as if with one rise and fall of the tides. I spent the time in locating the various fields of game: the tall holly-trees where the wild turkeys roosted, the sloughs where the bass were gamest, and marked down the cover of the partridge. In the meantime I collected specimens for the university. It came about that I didn’t always go out alone. The best time of all to study wild-life is in late twilight and the first hours of dawn—and at such times Edith was unemployed. Many the still, late evenings when we stood together on the shore and watched the curlews in their strange, aerial minuet that no naturalist has even been able to explain; many the dewey morning that we watched the first sun’s rays probe through the mossy forest. She had an instinctive love for the outdoors, and her agile young body had seemingly fibers of steel. At least she could follow me wherever I wanted to go. Once we came upon the Floridan deer, feeding in a natural woods-meadow, and once a [Pg 46]gigantic manatee, the most rare of large American mammals, flopped in the mud of the Ochakee River. We knew that incredible confusion and bustle made by the wild turkeys when they flew to the tree-tops to roost; and she learned to whistle the partridge out from their thickets.
Prev.
Back
Top