And then, like a giddy fool as I was, I needs must give them a startler--the whoop of an owl, done so exactly, as John Fry had taught me, and echoed by the roof so fearfully, that one of them dropped the tinder-box, and the other caught up his gun and cocked it--at least as I judged by the sounds they made. And then, too late, I knew my madness: for if either of them had fired, no doubt but what all the village would have risen and rushed upon me. However, as the luck of the matter went, it proved for my advantage; for I heard one say to the other:-- "Curse it, Charlie, what was that? It scared me so, I have dropped my box; my flint is gone, and everything. Will the brimstone catch from your pipe, my lad?" "My pipe is out, Phelps, ever so long. D--n it, I am not afraid of an owl, man. Give me the lantern, and stay here. I'm not half done with you yet, my friend." "Well said, my boy, well said! Go straight to Carver's, mind you. The other sleepy-heads be snoring, as there is nothing up to-night. No dallying now under captain's window: Queen will have naught to say to you, and Carver will punch your head into a new wick for your lantern." "Will he, though? Two can play at that." And so, after some rude jests and laughter, and a few more oaths, I heard Charlie (or at any rate somebody) coming toward me, with a loose and not too sober footfall. As he reeled a little in his gait, and I would not move from his way one inch, after his talk of Lorna, but only longed to grasp him (if common sense permitted it), his braided coat came against my thumb, and his leathern gaiters brushed my knee. If he had turned or noticed it, he would have been a dead man in a moment; but his drunkenness saved him. So I let him reel on unharmed; and thereupon it occurred to me that I could have no better guide, passing as he would exactly where I wished to be--that is to say, under Lorna's window. Therefore I followed him, without any special caution; and soon I had the pleasure of seeing his form against the moonlit sky. Down a steep and winding path, with a hand-rail at the corners (such as they have at Ilfracombe), Master Charlie tripped along--and indeed there was much tripping, and he must have been an active fellow to recover as he did--and after him walked I, much hoping (for his own poor sake) that he might not turn and espy me. But Bacchus (of whom I read at school, with great wonder about his meaning--and the same I may say of Venus), that great deity, preserved Charlie, his pious worshiper, from regarding consequences. So he led me very kindly to the top of the meadow-land where the stream from underground broke forth, seething quietly with a little hiss of bubbles. Hence I had fair view and outline of the robbers' township, spread with bushes here and there, but not heavily overshadowed. The moon, approaching now the full, brought the forms in manner forth, clothing each with character, as the moon (more than the sun) does to an eye accustomed.