“Oh goodness! I forgot! They didn't bring it off, I hope.”
“Not they; the watch was too well set, but it was wanted. I had a leaf about it a few minutes after, and it seems they got him asleep.”
“Well! I never heard anyone bring a leaf.”
“I dare say not, but I was expecting it; pigeon dropped it. There it is, on that child's back.”
I saw the hen-owl stoop and examine a dead chestnut leaf which lay, as the other had said, on an owlet's back.
“Fa-a-ther!” said this owlet suddenly, in a shrill voice, “mayn't I go out to-night?”
But all that Father did was to clasp its head in his claw and push it to and fro several times. When he let go, the owlet made no sound, but crept away and hid its face in a corner, and heaved as if with sobs. Father closed his eyes slowly and opened them slowly—amused, I thought. The mother had been reading the leaf all the time.
“Dear me! very interesting!” she said. “I suppose now the worst of it is over.”
“All's quiet for to-night, anyhow,” said Father, “but I wish he could see someone about to-morrow; that's their last chance, and they may——” He ruffled up his feathers, lifted first one foot and then the other. “The awkwardness is,” he went on, “if I say too much and they do get the jars, there's one risk; and if there's no warning and they get them, there's another risk.”
“But if there is a warning and they don't get them,” said she, very sensibly.