But the Owls were equal to the occasion. They ruffled their
feathers, and cried, "No surrender!" The featherless beings plied their
work cheerfully, and answered, "Reform!" The creepers were torn down
this way and that. The horrid daylight poured in brighter and brighter.
The Owls had barely time to pass a new resolution, namely, "That we do
stand by the Constitution," when a ray of the outer sunlight flashed
into their eyes, and sent them flying headlong to the nearest shade.
There they sat winking, while the summer-house was cleared of the rank
growth that had choked it up, while the rotten wood-work was renewed,
while all the murky place was purified with air and light. And when the
world saw it, and said, "Now we shall do!" the Owls shut their eyes
in pious remembrance of the darkness, and answered, "My lords and
gentlemen, the Constitution is destroyed!"
CHAPTER THE SECOND.
THE GUESTS.
Who was responsible for the reform of the summer-house? The new tenant
at Windygates was responsible.
And who was the new tenant?
Come, and see.
In the spring of eighteen hundred and sixty-eight the summer-house had
been the dismal dwelling-place of a pair of owls.
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