"Well, sir, we must not make mischief; he was a young chap new at the business, a sort of grand-nevvy of mine by the wife's side. He'll do better next time, will young Dick Westlock. He was over-eager, that's all. And when you hear a cry in these woods, unless you are thoroughly accustomed to them, it may lead you a pretty dance: it takes a practised ear to tell rightly where it comes from."
"You should know me better, Bradford," returned I, "than to suppose I would bring a lad to harm by mentioning such a matter; but I should like to ask him a question or two, if you will point him out."
"There he is then, sir," answered Oliver, pointing to a good-looking, honest lad enough, but one who perhaps would scarcely have been considered sufficiently old for so trustworthy a part as sentinel of the home preserves, had he not been grand-nephew to the head keeper.
"Why, Dick," said I, "your uncle telly me that you took an owl for a poacher last night, and followed his voice all over the Chase."
"It wasn't no owl," sir, quoth Dick, stoutly; "it were the voice of a man, whosoever it was."
"Don't thee be a fool," exclaimed his uncle, roughly. "I tell thee it was a bird, and called like this;" and the keeper gave a very excellent imitation of the cry of an owl.
This was not greatly unlike the sound which had so recently affrighted my own ears; but then owls rarely cry in the daytime.
"Dick," cried I, "never mind your uncle; listen to me. If you thought it was a human voice, what do you think it said?"
"Well, I can't rightly say as it said anything; it seemed to me to be a sort of wobbling in the throat; and I thought it might be a sound among some poaching fellars, made with a bird-call, or the like of that."
"Supposing it said any word at all, Dick, what word was it most like?"