ry
serious, and being poetry made it still more so. "Don't you do it, else
you'll rue it!" That's what my father used to tell me a score of times a
day, when I was a boy, and the words somehow came in my mind that night.
Therefore I resolved to speak 'em and make 'em sound so mysterious as I
could, just when the young fellow found the canister.

It all went very well--in fact, a lot better than I'd hoped for, chance
favoured me in a very peculiar way, and the Dowl hisself couldn't have
planned a greater or more startling surprise for Cranston Champernowne.
Along he came presently, with his head down and his shoulders up. Like a
haunted creature he crept from the woods; his face was white, and misery
stared out of it. Presently he looked upward at the moon, while he walked
along like an old, tired man. And when I see his face, I was terrible glad
I'd took such a lot of trouble for him, because 'twas properly ravaged
with suffering. He came to the canister, and the owl was hollering for all
he was worth, and the matter fell out like this. First Mister Champernowne
catched sight of the canister and stood still, as if the sight had froze
him; then the bird shouted, and I had to wait for him to shut up afore I
had my say.

"Hoo-hoo-hoo! Hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!" went the owl. Then, the moment he stopped,
I spoke, very loud and slow.

"Don't you do it, or else you'll rue it!" I said.

And the young man gazed up into the air and very near fell down in a fit,
I believe, for he 'peared to think he'd heard but one voice, and that the
owl was telling to him! I'm sure it must have been like that with him, for
he cried aloud and he lifted up his hands, and he shook like a reed in the
river.

"Good God in Heaven, what's this? Am I mad?" he says. Then the owl was
frightened, and slipped away silent on open wing, and the young man stood
still staring and panting. He put his hands over his face to wipe away the
canister, for 'twas clear that he didn't believe the thing was real; but
when he looked again, there it lay, glittering like a star--the very item
he'd thrown in the deepest part of the river not an hour afore! Then he
crept towards it very slow, as if 'twas a snake; and he bent and touched
it and found it to be a real thing and not a dream. With that he picked it
up and strained his ears to listen; and I could see the sweat shining on
the face of 'un and the breath of the man puffing in a mist on the night
air. He stood all doubtfu