in at the window and gone again...

Ah-Aah! sounded the sleepy sea. And from the bush there came the sound of
little streams flowing, quickly, lightly, slipping between the smooth
stones, gushing into ferny basins and out again; and there was the
splashing of big drops on large leaves, and something else--what was it?--a
faint stirring and shaking, the snapping of a twig and then such silence
that it seemed some one was listening.

Round the corner of Crescent Bay, between the piled-up masses of broken
rock, a flock of sheep came pattering. They were huddled together, a
small, tossing, woolly mass, and their thin, stick-like legs trotted along
quickly as if the cold and the quiet had frightened them. Behind them an
old sheep-dog, his soaking paws covered with sand, ran along with his nose
to the ground, but carelessly, as if thinking of something else. And then
in the rocky gateway the shepherd himself appeared. He was a lean, upright
old man, in a frieze coat that was covered with a web of tiny drops, velvet
trousers tied under the knee, and a wide-awake with a folded blue
handkerchief round the brim. One hand was crammed into his belt, the other
grasped a beautifully smooth yellow stick. And as he walked, taking his
time, he kept up a very soft light whistling, an airy, far-away fluting
that sounded mournful and tender. The old dog cut an ancient caper or two
and then drew up sharp, ashamed of his levity, and walked a few dignified
paces by his master's side. The sheep ran forward in little pattering
rushes; they began to bleat, and ghostly flocks and herds answered them
from under the sea. "Baa! Baaa!" For a time they seemed to be always on
the same piece of ground. There ahead was stretched the sandy road with
shallow puddles; the same soaking bushes showed on either side and the same
shadowy palings. Then something immense came into view; an enormous shock-
haired giant with his arms stretched out. It was the big gum-tree outside