Tarka played on until he was hungry, when he went back to the salmon. Marland Jimmy played alone at the slide.
The ebb-tide moved along the sea-weedy perches stuck in the mud to mark the fairway. A mist was rising like steam from the top of the water, which moved slower with its weight of surface slush. The slush became clotted, and hardened, and suddenly ceased to move. The star-points dulled. Orion was stripped of his flashing, the green tongue of Sirius was mute, the Swan lost her lustre, the glare of the Bull faded.
Kack! croaked Old Nog, flapping up from the fish carcass as a fox slunk down to it. The tips of his open beak were red with the frozen blood of a speared rat, which was sticking in his gullet. In swaying flight, reed-like legs hanging with weakness, the heron set off for the gravel pools of the Shrarshook. Kack! he called to his mate, who was standing in the ebb to her knees, fifty yards beyond the slide. She did not move; nor did the tide.
Krark! called Old Nog at dawn, flying over the pill, and calling his mate again. Hu-ee-ee-ic! whistled Tarka to Marland Jimmy, who had not answered since the star-points had suddenly dimmed and vanished off the water. Hu-ee-ee-ic!—a thin, hard cry, which Greymuzzle heard among the reeds of the duckpond. Hu-ee-ee-ic! travelling through the ice-blink in the pill, and out across the estuary.
Bubu stared down at Tarka walking over to the eastern sea-wall; fanned above him before beating away. The Arctic Owl perched fifty
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