92 WHISPERS FROM FAIRVLAND. {ut

 

the maize was thickest had craftily placed a trap,
carefully concealed by dry leaves artfully laid upon it.
Miserable wretch that I was, I had unwarily hopped
upon this hidden engine of destruction, and in all
probability should pay the penalty with my life!

For the first moment or two I was so stupified by
the suddenness of the misfortune into which I had
fallen that I remained perfectly dumb. Then, as a
racking pain shot through my poor leg, I gave vent
to a caw of agony which attracted the attention of all
the birds near me. The hen pheasants began to
scurry away into the thick underwood, the cock birds
stared at me with amazement, let fall several unkind
remarks about thieves coming to no good, and stalked
slowly away from the place as if it was no business of
theirs at all. A blackbird or two answered my cries
with a sympathising chuckle, and a robin red-breast
calmly regarded me with a pitying eye from the twig
of a hazel-tree on which he was perched. But none
offered to help me—no kindly claw was outstretched
to aid—no pitying beak opened to comfort me, and,
to make matters worse, several jays came flying at

_once from other parts of the wood, screeching and
laughing over my head as if my agony was the best
joke in the world.

I had sense enough to know that it would be the
height of folly to continue to cry out, for I should by
this means certainly attract the attention of some
keeper or labourer in the fields, who might very
possibly put an end to my pain and my life together
if he found me in the trap. Therefore I tried to
bear the pain as well as I could, and waited perfectly