THE HERITAGE OF DEDLOW
MARSH.
I.
The sun was going down on the Dedlow Marshes. The tide was
following it fast as if to meet the reddening lines of sky and water in the
west, leaving the foreground to grow blacker and blacker every moment,
and to bring out in startling contrast the few half-filled and half-lit pools
left behind and forgotten. The strong breath of the Pacific fanning their
surfaces at times kindled them into a dull glow like dying embers. A
cloud of sand- pipers rose white from one of the nearer lagoons, swept in a
long eddying ring against the sunset, and became a black and dropping
rain to seaward. The long sinuous line of channel, fading with the light
and ebbing with the tide, began to give off here and there light puffs of
gray-winged birds like sudden exhalations. High in the darkening sky
the long arrow-headed lines of geese and \'brant\' pointed towards the
upland. As the light grew more uncertain the air at times was filled with
the rush of viewless and melancholy wings, or became plaintive with faroff
cries and lamentations. As the Marshes grew blacker the far-scattered
tussocks and accretions on its level surface began to loom in exaggerated
outline, and two human figures, suddenly emerging erect on the bank of
the hidden channel, assumed the proportion of giants.