fact he was naturally unaware.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

AN ADVENTURE.

Godfrey Boyne, consequent upon the darkness, was forced to keep to the
well-beaten road; but it was grand. He breathed freely; there was a
feeling of exultation to make his chest expand; his nostrils quivered
with the delight he felt; and from time to time he checked his strong
desire to run, and stopped to listen to the sounds that arrested his
attention on either side--sometimes soft and mysterious, sometimes
startling.

There was the low rustling amongst last year's leaves as some mouse was
busy. Then the faint trickling of a worm struggling with a strand which
it was fighting hard to drag into its hole.

A little farther on he was startled by a sudden rush as something
bounded away from close to his feet; and, as he stood breathing hard, he
could hear it go on _pat, pat, pat, pat_, right away, till the sounds
died out.

He knew it was a rabbit, but the suddenness made his heart beat faster
all the same.

Then he was off again, to startle--as he had been startled himself--a
blackbird or thrush suddenly awakened from its roost, or hear the loud
flapping of a wood-pigeon beating through the trees overhead.

There were other sounds, too, to which he could not give a name. But it
was all dark, mysterious, and delightful, as he went on cautiously lest
he should lose touch of the road, and find difficulty in getting back.

How long this lasted, or how far he had gone, was driven, out of his
mind soon after, when he came to a sudden turn in the wood where
something dimly seen glided by him, close to his face, uttering a most
unearthly shriek which, to use the common expression, brought his heart
to his mouth and seemed to fix his feet to the ground.

Then it was gone, gliding away upon silent wing, and he had sufficient
commonsense to attribute the sound to a screech-owl.

"Not one of those," he muttered, "that hoot and shout and answer one
another as they fly round the house at night. There," he said, with a
sigh, "I won't stop any longer. I don't know how long I have been, but
I don't want Waller to find me out. He wouldn't like it; and it doesn't
seem right."

He stopped, hesitating now, the incident of the passing owl that he had
come upon, and startled into uttering its shriek of dread on finding
itself suddenly in such close contact with its great enemy, man, having
confused him a little as to his direction, and it was some moment