[Illustration:  Robin stood with his hand resting against a tree trunk.]

Then it came sailing out, swimming by means of its long thin legs and toes, coming right into the opening, looking of a dark shiny brownish green, all but its stunted tail, the under part of which was pure white, with a black band across.

Little John told him afterwards that it was a moor-hen, even if it was a cock bird.  It was, not this which took so much of Robin’s attention, but the seven or eight little dark balls which followed it out along one of the lanes of open water, swimming here and there and making dabs with their little beaks at the insects gliding about the top.

It was so quiet and seemed so safe that directly after the reeds parted again and another bird swam out from among the sheltering reeds.  Robin knew this directly as a drake, but he had never before seen one with such a gloriously green head, rich chestnut-colored breast, soft gray back, or glistening metallic purple wing spots.

Robin could have sent a sharp-pointed arrow at this beautiful bird, and perhaps have killed it, for he knew well that roast duck or drake is very nice stuffed with sage and onions, and with green peas to eat therewith; but he never thought of using his bow, and he was content to feast his eyes upon the bird’s beauty and watch its motions.

The drake took no notice of the moor-hen and her dusky dabs, but swam right out in the middle, seemed to stand up on the water, stretching out his neck and flapping his wings so sharply that something right on the other side moved suddenly, and Robin saw that there was another bird which he had not seen before—­a long-necked, long-legged, loose-feathered gray creature with sharp eyes and a thin beak, standing in the water and staring eagerly at the drake as much as to say: 

“What’s the matter there?” while he uttered aloud the one enquiring cry—­

“Quaik?”

“Wirk—­wirk—­wirk!” said the drake.

“Quack, quack, quack, quack!” came from out of the reeds, and a brown duck came sailing out, followed by ten little yellow balls of down with flat beaks, swimming like their mother, but in a hurried pop-and-go-one fashion, in and out, and round and round, and seeming to go through country dances on the water in chase of water beetles and running spiders or flies, while the duck kept on uttering a warning quack, and the drake, who, first with one eye and then with the other, kept a sharp look up in the sky for falcons and hawks, now and then muttered out a satisfied “Wirk—­wirk—­wirk!”

Robin was Just thinking how beautiful it all was, when the danger for which the drake was watching in the sky suddenly came from the water beneath.

One of the downy yellow dabs had swum two yards away from the others and his mother, after a daddy long-legs which had flown down on to the surface of the water, and had opened its little flat beak to seize it, when there was a whirl in the water, a rush and splash, and two great jaws armed with sharp teeth closed over the duckling, which was visible one moment, gone the next, and Robin drew an arrow out to fit to his bow-string.