ut along the edge, among the great
sorrel plants and amid the leaves of burdock, the Count, leaping like a
frog over the grass, quietly crawled near on his hands and knees; he put
out his head, and beheld a marvellous sight.

In that part of the garden grew scattered cherry trees; among them grain
and vegetables, purposely of mixed varieties: wheat, maize, beans, bearded
barley, millet, peas, and even bushes and flowers. The housekeeper had
devised such a garden for the poultry; she was famous for her skill--her
name was Mrs. Hennibiddy, born Miss Turkee. Her invention made an epoch in
poultry-raising: to-day it is universally known, but in those times it was
still passed about as a novelty and received under the seal of secrecy by
only a few persons, until at last the almanac published it under the
heading, _A cure for hawks and kites, or a new method of raising
poultry_--that meant this garden patch.

As soon as the cock that keeps watch stands still, and, throwing back and
holding motionless his bill, and inclining to one side his head with its
red comb, that he may the more easily aim at the heavens with his eye,
perceives a hawk hanging beneath the clouds, he calls the alarm: at once
the hens take refuge in this garden--even the geese and peacocks, and the
doves in their sudden fright, if they have not time to hide beneath the
roof.

Now no enemy was to be seen in the sky, but the summer sun was burning
fiercely; from it the birds had taken refuge in the grove of grain: some
were lying on the turf, others bathing in the sand.

Amid the birds' heads rose little human heads, uncovered, with short hair,
white as flax, their necks bare to the shoulders; in their midst was a
girl, a head higher than they, with longer hair. Just behind the children
sat a peacock, and spread out wide the circle of its tail into a
many-coloured rainbow, against the deep blue of which the little white
heads were relieved as on the background of a picture; they gathered
radiance, being surrounded by the gleaming eyes of the tail as by a wreath
of stars, and they shone amid the grain as in the transparent ether,
between the golden stalks of the maize, the English grass with its silvery
stripes, the coral mercury, and the green mallow, the forms and colours of
which were mingled together like a lattice plaited of silver and gold, and
waving in the air like a light veil.

Above the mass of many-coloured ears and stalks hung like a canopy a