For a while there were rustlings and stirrings and little prayers; but as the darkness grew, the small heads became still, and at last every feathered mother had her brood quiet under her wings, the talk in the little beds was over, and God's bird-nursery at rest beneath the waves of sleep.

Once more a few flutterings made me look up: an owl went sailing across.

I had only a glimpse of him, but several times felt the cool wafture of his silent wings.

The mother birds did not move again; they saw that he was looking for mice, not children.
About midnight I came wide awake, roused by a revelry, whose noises were yet not loud.

Neither were they distant; they were close to me, but attenuate.