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 



