The dark and deep stream, which now had grown to a width of some twelve yards perhaps, was gliding swiftly, but without a murmur, towards the broad and watery moon. On the right-hand side, steep scars of chalk, shedding gleams of white rays, made the hollow places darker; while on the other side, furzy tummocks, patches of briar, and tufted fallows spread the many-pointed light among their shadows justly. “Please to listen,” again said Alice, shrinking from her father, lest she might be felt to tremble. “What a plaintive, thrilling sound! It must be a good banshee, I am sure; a banshee that knows how good we are, and protests against our extinction. There it is again--and there seems to be another wail inside of it.” “A Chinese puzzle of noises, Lallie, and none of them very musical. Your ears are keener than mine, of course; but being extinct of romance, I should say that I heard a donkey braying.” “Papa, now! papa, if it comes to that--and I said it was like Uncle Struan’s voice! But I beg his pardon, quite down on my knees, if you think that it can be a donkey.” “I am saved all the trouble of thinking about it. There he is, looking hard at us!” “Oh no, papa, he is not looking hard at us. He is looking most softly and sadly. What a darling donkey! and his nose is like a snowdrop!” Clearly in the moonlight shone, on the opposite bank of the Woeburn, the nose of Jack the donkey. His wailings had been coming long, and his supplications rising; he was cut off from his home, and fodder, and wholly beloved Bonny. And the wail inside a wail--as Alice had described it--was the sound of the poor boy’s woe, responsive to the forlorn appeal of Jack. On the brink of the cruel dividing water they must have been for a long time striding up and down, over against each other, stretching fond noses vainly forward, and outvying one another in the luxury of poetic woe. “Don’t say a word, papa,” whispered Alice; “the boy cannot see us here behind this bush, and we can see him beautifully in the moonlight. I want to know what he will do, so much.” “I don’t see what he can do except howl,” Sir Roland answered quietly: “and certainly he seems to possess remarkable powers in that way.” “Bo-hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo!” wept Bonny in confirmation of this opinion; and “eke-haw, eke-haw,” from a nose of copious pathos, formed the elegiac refrain. Then having exhausted the well of weeping, the boy became fitter for reasoning. He wiped his eyes with his scarlet sleeves, and stretched forth his arms reproachfully.