“Let Abel Churr rest,” said the captain quietly. “I may find means of quieting his tongue.”
“I’d like to do it myself,” growled Wat, as they separated, but only for the latter to be called back.
“Have you been hanging about the Pool-house lately, Wat?”
The great fellow shuffled about, and rubbed one ear.
“You need not answer,” said Gil, quietly, and he walked away.
How Mother Goodhugh cursed Abel Churr.
The rocky ravine which looked in the darkness like the entrance to some mystic region had hardly been vacated by Captain Gil’s crew, and the storehouse that he had formed in this stronghold of nature left to its solitude, before there was a curious rustling noise on high; a piece of bark fell to the ground; then a dry, dead twig; then the rustling was continued, and ceased for quite a quarter of an hour before it began again.
This time it was commenced more loudly, and a branch of a tree overhead in the darkness quivered and jerked.
“Too—hoo—hoo—hoo—hoo—hoo—o—hoo—o—o—o—o!” cried an owl somewhere close at hand, when the noise suddenly ceased, and all was silent once more for a good half-hour. Then the rustling was resumed, and in the dim starlight a figure was seen to descend a tree, rustling and scraping the bark till it reached the patch of soil in which the gnarled oak was rooted, and, thrusting aside the bushes, the figure made its way down to the trickling stream, which, after running apparently from the rock, coursed amongst the stones and ferns, half-hidden from the light of day, down the ravine bottom, to join some larger rivulet miles away.