10 THE BARN OWL. 
ful notes alarmed the aged housekeeper. She knew 
full well what sorrow it had brought into other 
houses when she was a young woman; and there 
was enough of mischief in the midnight wintry 
blast, without having it increased by the dismal 
screams of something which people knew very 
little about, and which every body said was far 
too busy in the churchyard at night-time. Nay, 
it was a well-known fact, that if any person were 
sick in the neighbourhood, it would be for ever 
looking in at the window, and holding a conversa- 
tion outside with somebody, they did not know 
whom. The gamekeeper agreed with her in every- 
thing she said on this important subject; and he 
always stood better in her books when he had 
managed to shoot a bird of this bad and mischievous 
family. However, in 1813, on my return from 
the wilds of Guiana, having suffered myself, and 
learned mercy, I broke in pieces the code of penal 
laws which the knavery of the gamekeeper and the 
lamentable ignorance of the other servants had 
hitherto put in force, far too successfully, to thin 
the numbers of this poor, harmless, unsuspecting 
tribe. On the ruin of the old gateway, against 
which, tradition says, the waves of the lake have 
dashed for the better part of a thousand years, 
I made a place with stone and mortar, about 4 ft. 
square, and fixed a thick oaken stick firmly into 
it. Huge masses of ivy now quite cover it. In 
about a month or so after it was finished, a pair of 
barn owls came and took up their abode in it. 
I threatened to strangle the keeper if ever, after 
