We had to all fuss round her, and swear that without her it
wouldn't be worth calling a picnic. She brightened up on the way
home."
The screech-owl in the yew-tree emitted a blood-curdling scream. He
perches there each evening on the extreme end of the longest bough.
Dimly outlined against the night, he has the appearance of a friendly
hobgoblin. But I wish he didn't fancy himself as a vocalist. It is
against his own interests, I am sure, if he only knew it. That
American college yell of his must have the effect of sending every
living thing within half a mile back into its hole. Maybe it is a
provision of nature for clearing off the very old mice who have
become stone deaf and would otherwise be a burden on their relatives.
The others, unless out for suicide, must, one thinks, be tolerably
safe. Ethelbertha is persuaded he is a sign of death; but seeing
there isn't a square quarter of a mile in this county without its
screech-owl, there can hardly by this time be a resident that an
Assurance Society would look at. Veronica likes him. She even likes
his screech. I found her under the tree the other night, wrapped up
in a shawl, trying to learn it. As if one of them were not enough!
It made me quite cross with her. Besides, it wasn't a bit like it,
as I told her. She said it was better than I could do, anyhow; and I
was idiot enough to take up the challenge. It makes me angry now,
when I think of it: a respectable, middle-aged literary man,
standing under a yew-tree trying to screech like an owl.
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