The sun was almost setting, but the owls in the old oak were still silent. “They’ll be hooting in an hour or twa,” he said, as Oliver had said it before him; and drawing the twist of cord from his pocket, he stepped aside among the bluebells to the oak-tree. Plenty of young ground ashes were shooting up among the flowers, and with the help of these, and of a low hazel bush or two, he contrived to fasten the cord in a pretty tight circle round the tree-trunk, at a distance of some half-dozen yards from it, and about a foot and a half from the ground. There being still plenty of cord, he looked about for a log of wood, and finding one not too heavy, he tied the cord round it, and hoisted it up on a low branch of the big tree, on the side nearest the ride, just balancing it at the junction of one gnarled bough with another, so that a strong pull at the string would easily bring it down. This done, he fastened the other end tightly down to his circle below, and then paused, with a face of extreme gravity, to contemplate his apparatus.
Suddenly his severe features relaxed. There had shot across his memory a certain scene, when as a bare-legged callant playing on his native braes, he had devised just such a booby-trap to catch another boy, with a view of securing for himself a certain nest in which eggs were about to be laid. The grim features of Mr. McNab relaxed, I say, and in his solitude in the wood he burst out into a hearty ringing laugh.
“At bairn’s wark in my auld age! And what wad the Dominie say? Wad I be for a crack wi’ the tawse, or the knuckle-end of the auld crab-stick at hame, eh!”
Mr. McNab lit his pipe, the better to resume his ordinary composure; and puffing at it with lips which now and then a convulsive movement almost compelled to laughter, he strode away through the wood to his own dwelling on the further side of it.
IV.
And now the wood was left once more in profound peace. Since old Oliver passed through it the shadows had grown still longer, and from the west there now came a flush of sunset through the boughs, turning the blue carpet into one of deeper purple; while against the fading light the great tree-trunks stood up solemnly, slowly blackening as their shadows died away. Here and there a wood-pigeon broke the stillness in the boughs, or a nightingale broke out into a flash of song, and ceased again as suddenly; but the owls in the old tree began to bestir themselves in soft silence, and reserved their hootings until they should have procured a meal for the downy nestlings in the deep warm hole. But beware, O ye owls and owlets, for the Philistines are at hand, and the warrant of the ladies is out against you!
As the last hues of sunset died away on the Cotswold hills there came through the wood unlucky little Mr. Weekes; small in person and small in acres; discontented with his dealings at the fair, and with things in general, and ready for any project that might put a pound or two into his pocket without actually endangering his limbs or his liberty. As he passed the great oak, a large creature flew noiselessly over his head in the direction of the tree, and woke up Mr. Weekes’ memory, which had been halting in the slough of his discontent.
“Ah, the owls!” he thought. “Half-a-guinea a-piece, did he say? Well, it might be, if there’s a run on ’em; and that fellow Pogson said he was coming here first thing to-morrow morning to shoot ’em; but I’ll be even with the prosperous fat brute.”
Mr. Weekes thought of the morning’s pig-driving, into which he had been compelled by Pogson’s superior force of character; of the two ribs of his wife’s umbrella which he had broken on the back of one wayward squeaker; and of the long detour he had taken when leaving Northstow, to avoid falling again in with the pig-driver, and being once more driven to drive.
So he went home to his rickety little homestead beyond the wood, and reached down his old gun from its place above the chimney-piece; only yielding to the injunctions of his wife that he must eat a bit o’ supper first, and that if he must be for shooting owls, he should begin by shooting the one which was stealing all their young pigeons. Obedient as usual, though querulous, Mr. Weekes presently took up his station in his yard, watching the dovecote and the darkening sky; but luckily for the pigeons, whom the owls were nightly protecting from their enemies the rats, no owl made his appearance for a full half-hour after Mr. Weekes had given them up in despair, and had carried off his gun to the wood in hopes of better luck.