Then, alone once more, they resumed their former existence in the dark hollow of the old oak, so solitary and silent now; they bore their children’s departure as only another of nature’s inevitable necessities. They seldom stirred from home now, seeing hardly a soul except a couple of old friends sometimes on Sabbath days; as of old, they held long, long talks of nights with the moon. Perched side by side on the eaves, their dark shapes threw long black shadows across the roof; there they sat stiff and still, save when, from time to time, they spread their wings, swooped down on their prey, then resumed the same rigid attitude. These murderous assassins were at heart the most peaceable of good citizens. It was never their way, coming home at night, to wake the other birds asleep among the foliage; no one ever heard them quarrelling or shifting the furniture or pecking at the wall, as the cuckoos, linnets, and chaffinches are so fond of doing; only, six or eight times in the night, to advertise the country folk, they would cry _To-hoo! to-hoo!_ if next day was going to be fine, and _To-whit!_ if it was going to rain, at regular intervals, like talking barometers. A pair of young turtle-doves nesting on the next roof found this habit annoying, and went to the judge of the district to lodge a complaint. The judge was a very old raven, whom years had only made more sly and artful; he was said to be a hundred, and certainly his bald pate was as shiny as a polished stone. He lived in a crevice in the rocks, alone with his own thoughts. But these thoughts, unlike most old men’s, were full of mockery for all created beings. This feathered Methuselah had seen so much in his day! and experience had only taught him to laugh at griefs and joys and everything else. While appreciating his usefulness, he did not like Mr. Owl, and was not sorry to make things unpleasant for him; he could always dismiss the case in the end, after getting his fun out of it, if the turtles proved, as he half suspected, to have been in the wrong after all. Three blackbirds he employed as constables arrived at break of day at the owls’ front door and knocked. Three times they had to repeat the summons, so fast asleep was the worthy couple, till, roused at last, the latter poked out their heads in great alarm to ask what was wanted with them. Both looked so upset, he, poor fellow, in a nightcap, and she, good dame, in morning deshabille, that the blackbirds, who are always fond of a joke, burst into such a peal of laughter it took them ten minutes to recover their gravity. They laughed so heartily that the sparrows of the neighbourhood were attracted by the noise, and began to turn and wheel in flocks above the roof, while a horrid hubbub, a vile chirp! chirp! chirp! broke out, deafening and confusing the poor owls still more. The blackbirds, when they had done laughing, called for silence, which, however, it took some time to establish. Then they announced—