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The grass grew so thin and dry that they did little harm by passing through it. It sprang up in front of their feet as they moved backwards in their white dresses. All colour had passed from the earth. The ripple of the river and the cry of the whip-poor-will rose amid the murmur of the night insects. "Do you sometimes come down here of an evening?" asked the young man.
"I am very sure that I am," said Olive. "I don't think any of us will sit up much later than the birds to-night!" "I hear a Veery," said Rap, "and a Phoebe too." "Whip-poor-will! Whip-poor-will! Church!" cried a loud voice close by, and something like a long-winged Owl almost struck Olive with its wing as it flitted past.
Again Jerry gave their mutual Brighton signal: "Whip-poor-will." "He can't be entirely out of hearing," he argued. "There's some reason why he doesn't answer." It was fast growing dark.
Every thing which is not easily understood is a spirit. Among the Creek Indians the Whip-poor-will is a spirit; the Jack o' Lantern is the same: and, with regard to the latter, they agree with the remnant of the Massachusett Indians, who believe it is the shape which the Evil Spirit takes in his visits to the sons of men.
The only sounds, save the lulling murmur of the rippling stream below, were the plaintive note of the whip-poor-will, from a gnarled oak that grew near them, and the harsh grating scream of the night hawk, darting about in the higher regions of the air, pursuing its noisy congeners, or swooping down with that peculiar hollow rushing sound, as of a person blowing into some empty vessel, when it seizes with wide-extended bill its insect prey.
A whip-poor-will in a distant swamp sounded his plaintive call. Randy could not have analyzed the instinct which sent him back to Becky. It was not in the least to spy upon her, nor upon Dalton. He only knew that he could not sleep, that something drew him on and on, as Romeo was drawn perchance to Capulet's orchard. He came out from under the trees to other hills. He was still on his own land.
But at the same instant his head had disturbed a whip-poor-will who had taken refuge there from the noise. She flew away with a tumult of plaintive "whips." The rebel in front halted for a long time. Then he apparently concluded that an owl was after the whip-poor-will, and, reassured, came forward. As he had crawled along.
The night darkened upon him; he heard the owl screech his dismal note, and the whip-poor-will chant his cheery song. A certain sense of security now pervaded his mind, for the darkness concealed him from the world, and he had placed six good miles between him and the prison, as he considered it.
They walked there mornings when the leaves were silvered with dew, and evenings they sat beside the lily pond and listened for the whip-poor-will. The doctor's wife moved her room over to that side of the house which commanded a view of the yard, and thus made the honeysuckles and laurel and clematis and all the masses of tossing greenery her own.
The two men's eyes met in a solemn look. "Jean Boucher says this woman is dead." Jean Boucher stood on the bank, holding the canoe with one hand, and turning her unresisting face with the other. Jacques and Louizon took off their hats. They heard the cry of the whip-poor-will. The river had lost all its green and was purple, and purple shadows lay on the distant mountains and opposite ridge.
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