It chanced to be the hour for the chickens' siesta, and they were all folded away beneath her ample brooding wings.

Perhaps the danger had come too near to be avoided before I perceived it, but at all events my loud shriek of warning was too late to save the pretty crouching head from the flourish of the pack-horse's glancing heels.
Swift indeed was the blow; for scarcely ten seconds could have passed between my first glimpse of poor Kitty's bright black eye looking out, with such mortal terror in its expression, from beneath the yellow tuft of grass, and my seeing the horse's heel lay her head right open.

The brave little mother never dreamed of saving herself at the cost of her nestlings.

She crouched as low as possible, and when the horse had jumped over her I flew to see if she had escaped.No.There lay my pretty pet, with her wings still outspread and her chickens unhurt.

But she seemed dead: her head had been actually cut clean open, and I never expected that she would have lived a moment.