taught four fledgelings to spear fish in the pool, which lay placid when the sea had lapsed.
Six herons stood in a row eighty yards above the bridge, in the sandy shallow at the head of the pool. Kack! Kack! Kack! Kack!—the young birds squawked with eagerness and delight. Dusk deepened over the wide and empty river, the pool shone faintly with the sky. Down by the round black piers of the bridge something splashed. Old Nog raised his head, for he had been awaiting the splash. It was a sign that the bass in the pool were beginning to feed.
Splash, splatter, splash. Soon many fish were rising to take the shrimp-fry on the surface. They were hungry after the daytime rest, having gone up with the tide to Halfpenny Bridge, and returned to the pool without feeding, while men on the banks fished with lines of rag-worm baited hooks. Usually the men went home to supper, with empty baskets, before the fishes’ feeding time. Then to the quiet pool came that wise fisher. Old Nog, with his family, standing motionless while the bass swam into the shallow water;—splash, splatter, splash, as they turned on their gleaming sides to take the shrimp-fry. Old Nog peered, with beak held low, and snicked—Kack! Kack! Kack! Kack! cried the four small herons, beating vanes and falling over long toes in their eagerness to gulp the silvery fish.
Gark! said Old Nog, swallowing the bass, and thrusting his beak and long feathered neck at the four. Gark! They got out of his way; never before had he spoken so severely to them. One saw the flicker of a fish in the water, and stepped
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