“Send it back, Fathie, send it back!” they shouted in chorus.
THE SINGER OF THE NIGHT—THE SCREECH OWL
The good Friar unpuckered his lips.
“I am surprised, comrades,” he said severely. “You aren’t afraid of an old screech-owl, are you?”
“N-n-n-ooo,” quavered little Will Scarlet, “if you’re sure it’s a nowl.”
“Certain sure,” asserted the Friar reassuringly, and gave the call again.
On muffled, silent wings the dark form drifted around and around the light, but never across it, and then alighted on a nearby tree and gave an indescribable little crooning note which the Friar could only approximate. At last, disgusted with the clumsy attempts to continue a conversation so well begun, the owl melted away into the darkness and was gone.
After that, the Band decided that home was the one place for them. Water was poured on the blaze, and earth heaped over the hissing embers. Under the sullen flare of Arcturus and the glow of Algieba, Spica, and all the stars of spring, they started back by dim wood roads and flower-scented lanes. Will Scarlet, Little John, and Allan a’ Dale frankly shared the hands of the Friar, and in the darkest places even the redoubtable Robin himself casually took possession of an unoccupied thumb.