dly decked with orange fungi, and surrounded by a
thick undergrowth of holly and elder bushes. This place had no name
beyond "the wood"--enough distinction in that county where a copse of
ash or fir was all that scarred moor and pasture with shadow. It was
just within Ishmael's property, marking his most inland boundary, and he
cherished it as something dearer than all his money-yielding acres. It
had been his ambition to make it the home of every bird that built its
nest there, of every badger or rabbit or toad or slow-worm that
sheltered in its fastnesses. No life should cry there for the teeth of
the trap, no feathers scatter for the brutal violating of the
sheltering bushes. Thus Ishmael, but otherwise Archelaus.... There was
little doubt what he and his fellows had come for: there were a
half-dozen of them when all were met, and all carried cudgels or flails
made of knotted cloth, and walked cautiously, whispering to each other
lest the birds should take premature flight. Ishmael and Killigrew
lagged behind them, waiting for certainty before discovering themselves.

It was deadlily dark in the wood, with a darkness more unbroken than the
stillness which yet seemed part of it. A thousand little scraping noises
broke the quiet air, chill and dank. Leaves pattered against each other,
twigs rubbed faintly, brittle things broke under the lightest foot.
Still hardly a wing unfolded ever so little, not a distressful chirp
heralded the slaughter that threatened. Gradually, to eyes growing used
to the gloom, differing shades of darkness became apparent; it was
faintly marked by them as the silence by the sounds....

Still the feathers were unstirred on the breasts where tiny beaks were
thrust in sleep; round, bright eyes were filmed by the delicate lids;
the bushes held undisturbed the little lives confided to them.

Suddenly a funnel of light flared into the darkness, intensifying it,
waking into vivid green a full-foliaged holly; a rain of blows echoed
back and forth through the night, a whirr of bewildered wings mingled
with it, a frantic piping that was drowned in the clamour even as it
burst forth. High overhead the startled wood-pigeons flew out into the
free air above the tree-tops, their clamour filling the whole place with
the beating of wings that in the dark seemed mighty as the wings of
avenging angels, but availed their tiny brethren nothing. In that one
minute there fell, beaten into the undergrowth to die mi