22 THE TRAVELS OF A BUTTERELY.

‘Chatter, chatter, chatter! Serve him right, Z say!” said
one sand-martin to another. ‘“ What right has anybody to
chase flies but ourselves >—and we have families to feed!”

“How did he get out?” said another sand-martin,
drawing one of his wing feathers through his beak, for it was
ruffled. “I did not wait to see myself. I only saw him
splashing in the water. I didn’t think it mattered much
whether he ever got out at all!”

“It did to his father,” said another. “ Just think what I
felt last year when one of the little ones crept out to the brink
of the cave that time and fell over! His mother and I
could not get him up again—we had to feed him where he
was!”

“Snap!” said the first, and he wheeled after a fly right
down to the waterside and back again. What were the sand-
martins gossiping about? Why, about a little boy who had
fallen into the river. He had been chasing a large yellow
butterfly, and it flew over the hedge into the next field, which
was all covered with smooth green grass, with a deep stream
winding along the bottom. The boy scrambled through a gap,
thinking only of what he was chasing; away they went till
they had crossed the field, when the butterfly quietly flew across
the river and left its tormentor behind. It was not till then
that the little boy heard a kind of low growl behind him, and,
looking round, he saw standing between himself and the only
way home a huge bull. The bull began to walk slowly towards
him, making an angry sound as it came, and tossing its head.
The child stood for an instant too frightened to move, then,
with a sharp-cry, he threw up his hands and began to run.
This was the worst thing he could have done, for bulls are like
little boys in some ways—they love chasing anything that will
run away from them.