flooding the moors with a pale ghostly light, taking the colour out of
the heather, and painting black shadows under the stone walls. Tommy
opened his eyes, and ran to the window. "The moon has risen," said he,
and crept softly down the ladder, through the kitchen, where was the
pan of water, but no Brownie, and so out on to the moor. The air was
fresh, not to say chilly; but it was a glorious night, though
everything but the wind and Tommy seemed asleep. The stones, the walls,
the gleaming lanes, were so intensely still; the church tower in the
valley seemed awake and watching, but silent; the houses in the village
round it had all their eyes shut, that is, their window-blinds down;
and it seemed to Tommy as if the very moors had drawn white sheets over
them, and lay sleeping also.

"Hoot! hoot!" said a voice from the fir plantation behind him. Somebody
else was awake, then. "It's the Old Owl," said Tommy; and there she
came, swinging heavily across the moor with a flapping stately flight,
and sailed into the shed by the mere. The old lady moved faster than
she seemed to do, and though Tommy ran hard she was in the shed some
time before him. When he got in, no bird was to be seen, but he heard a
crunching sound from above, and looking up, there sat the Old Owl,
pecking and tearing and munching at some shapeless black object, and
blinking at him--Tommy--with yellow eyes.

"Oh dear!" said Tommy, for he didn't much like it.

The Old Owl dropped the black mass on to the floor; and Tommy did not
care somehow to examine it.

"Come up! come up!" said she hoarsely.