  | The sun has set and Calum and Neil are sitting high in a tree after a day's work.
For about half an hour they sat there, no longer working. The scent of the tree seemed to strengthen with the darkness, until Calum fancied he was resting in the heart of an enormous flower. As he breathed in the fragrance, he stroked the branches, and to his gentle hands they were as soft as petals. More owls cried. Listening, as if he was an owl himself, he saw in imagination the birds huddled on branches far lower than this one on which he sat. He became an owl himself, he rose and fanned his wings, flew close to the ground, and then swooped, to rise again with vole or shrew squeaking in his talons... The owl could not be blamed; it lived according to its nature; but its victim must be pitied. This was the terrifying mystery, why creatures he loved should kill one another.
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