Whatever might occasion the noises, they continued with great regularity. The postman, continuing his round, spread news of the strange happening, and soon quite a number of people came into the wood to listen for themselves. No one was in the least able to account for the sounds, and the general opinion was that the tree was haunted. Superstition ran rife, and most of the neighbours considered it must be a portent. Poor Mrs. Treasure began to be quite sure it had some intimate connection with her mother's illness. Several girls were weeping hysterically, and one of them asked if the end of the world was coming. Meantime, more and more people kept crowding into the wood, and the idea spread that some disaster was imminent. "My John's out with the trawler!" wailed one woman. "I wish I'd not let him go! As like as not he'll be wrecked!" "You never know!" agreed a friend. Old Grandfather Treasure, who had hobbled up from the stackyard, quoted texts from Scripture and began to improve the occasion. His daughter-in- law, with Connie clasped in her arms, sobbed convulsively. Into the midst of all this excitement suddenly strode Bevis. "I heard about it down on the quay," he said. "I came up at once. I'll soon show you what it is!" He was buckling climbing-irons on to his legs while he spoke, and with the aid of these he rapidly mounted the elm tree to where the boughs forked, put his hand into a hollow, and drew out a wooden box, which he brought down with him. "It's nothing at all ghostly," he explained. "The fact is I'm fearfully keen on photographing birds, and I've just got a cinema camera. There's a sparrow-hawk's nest in the next tree, and I want to take pictures of it; only I knew the clicking of the cinema business would scare them away probably for hours, so I made a little mechanical contrivance that would go on clicking and let them get used to the noise, so that they'd take no notice when I really went to work. You can look at it if you want to." It was such a simple explanation that those among the neighbours who had most loudly expressed superstitious fears looked rather foolish, and the crowd began to melt away. "Why didn't you tell us about it, Bevis?" asked Merle in private. "Well, Soeurette, the fact is the birds are so shy that the fewer people who go and watch them the better for the success of a photograph. I'm afraid this will have sent them off altogether. Annoying, isn't it? Can't be helped, though, now. It's a good dodge all the same, and I shall try it again in some other tree when I can find a nest I want to take. Better luck next time, I hope!" CHAPTER XV Leave-takings