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"Ah! yes, Janet- if- and when- But that's a long way off, and, to come back to our former subject," she added, recalling herself with a sigh," it will be wise in us owlets to make up our minds that owlets we are, and to give the place to the eaglets." "But eaglets are very ugly, and owlets very pretty," quoth Janet. Carey laughed.
It indeed almost amounts, morally speaking, to marriage itself, and the breaking of it is looked upon socially almost as an act of infidelity to the marriage bond. A young girl who refuses to keep her engagement is called a civetta an owlet probably because owlets are used as a decoy all over the country in snaring and shooting all small birds.
Even the sounds of the night are different. The chuckles and cackles of the spotted owlets no longer fill the welkin; the silence of the darkness is broken in the mountains by the low monotonous whistle of the pigmy-collared owlet. The eye equally with the ear testifies to the traveller that when he has reached an altitude of 5000 feet he has entered another avian realm.
"Shall I give the story in full?" he asked with an odd quiet in his voice. "Nay! Nay!" Har-hat protested; "I have told the worst I would have said concerning that defeat of mine." Again he laughed and returned to the young man's identity once more. "Aye, I might have known that thou wast somewhat of kin to Mentu. Ye are as much alike as two owlets same candid face."
He commonly builds in the hollow of an old tree, also in deserted buildings, whither he resorts in the daytime to find repose and to escape annoyance. His voice is heard most frequently in the latter part of summer, when the young Owlets are abroad, and use their cries for purposes of mutual salutation and recognition. This wailing note is singularly wild, and not unmusical.
"'Tis for the young birds somewheers," he thought; "an' so they'll thrive an' turn out braave owlets come bimebye; but the li'l, squeakin', blind shrews, what'll they do when no mother comes home-along to 'em?" He mused drearily upon this theme, but suddenly started, for there came the echo of slow steps in the underwood behind him.
Night fell; the moon rose high among the clouds; the busy hum of the city ceased; the din of war and warriors' roar was hushed. The music of the cricket, the whirr of the owlets, might easily have been heard, when the holy Dame and the Palmer met. The Abbess had chosen a solemn hour, to disclose a solemn secret.
Mintz was clean-shaven and had long fair hair; he wore steel-rimmed pince-nez over his cold grey eyes which he often took off and put on again; when he did so his eyes changed, looking helpless and malicious without the glasses, like those of little owlets in daylight; his thin, shaven lips were closely compressed, and there was often an expression of mistrust and decrepitude in his face; his conversation and movements were noisy.
No, no! where the ivy now clusters there grew strong portcullis and bars of steel; where the wallflower now quivers in the rampart there were silken banners embroidered with wonderful heraldry; men-at-arms marched where now you shall only see a bank of moss or a hideous black champignon; and in place of the rats and owlets, I warrant me there were ladies and knights to revel in the great halls, and to feast, and to dance, and to make love there.
If wounded, and so unable to escape, it would not be breathing with that quiet, soft regularity, contrasting so strangely with the stillness and the silence all round. Possibly an owl's nest. Young owlets make that sort of noise the "snorers," so country people call them.
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