CHAPTER X THE WICKED PLOT OF THE BAD LITTLE OWLS

 As soon as the whippoorwill had finished whispering the news, about where Silvertip was hiding, he flew off so quietly that even the doctor couldn’t hear him. Then the wise old beast raised his queer, thin call, almost like a whistle, to tell Nibble¹ Rabbit he was wanted, and swam quite as quietly to the place in the bulrushes by the pond where they always met.

 

But no Nibble came. Nibble Rabbit was still hiding in the Quail’s Thicket², listening to Mr. and Mrs. Screech³ Owl⁴, who were perched right above him.

 

“That bird’s telling him about Silvertip,” said one. “If it had been any other bird in the woods he’d have spoken so we could overhear him.”

 

“I wish he had,” said the other. “We’ve picked that last hen so clean we’ll have to hunt for ourselves if we can’t find him. I wonder what that muskrat⁵ wants of him. He’s been asking every bird who came down to drink for the last three days. I heard Chaik the Jay talking to Chewee the Chickadee about it just when I was going to sleep this morning.”

 

“What did they say?” demanded Mrs. Screech Owl. The lady owl is always the more thoughtful. They both live in trees. Silvertip never bothers them.

 

“I didn’t understand,” said her mate. “Chaik was insisting that they must all hunt hard for Silvertip. He said that it concerned every good friend of Tommy Peele’s.”

 

“You pinfeathered idiot!” she exclaimed. “Why didn’t you tell me that before? That explains why Tommy Peele and his dog were sniffing⁶ about Silvertip’s fence corner. And that rabbit was with them. He’s at the bottom of all this. Something’s wrong there. I never knew a wild rabbit to be friends with a dog in all my life. If he’ll do that he’ll do anything. Silvertip must be warned. We can’t let anything happen to him. Besides, think how much he could do for us if he felt grateful.”

 

“Grateful? Not much. A fox is never grateful. But he’d know we were useful and that amounts to the same thing. I wonder why that rabbit doesn’t answer Doctor Muskrat?” and Mr. Screech Owl flew cautiously over the doctor’s house in the middle of the pond. Back he came to where his wife was still thinking. “He must have meant that call for the whippoorwill,” he said to his mate. “He’s gone to bed.”

 

“We must get some friend who lives on the ground to keep watch for us, too,” said the Lady Owl thoughtfully. “Only Silvertip has no friends. He’ll eat anybody.”

 

“Excepting old Foul⁷ Fang⁸ the Rattlesnake,” said Mr. Screech Owl. “We could buy Foul Fang’s service for a mouse a day. I’ll just do that, and you go up to the house, not the barn, mind, and see if you can get a word with that grandson of Ouphe the Rat who lives there. Silvertip’s never hunted him. By the kitchen door—now flutter!” And away they went.

 

But Nibble waited until he was perfectly¹⁰ sure they had gone before he crept down to talk with Doctor Muskrat in the bulrushes.

 

And he was a pretty trembly little rabbit. He hopped¹¹ very carefully, gliding¹² from shadow to shadow like a fieldmouse. And the doctor never moved when Nibble Rabbit slipped in beside him; he was listening to the stars as they danced in the pool just exactly the way he had done the night they told him Nibble’s fortune. He was muttering:

 

“Let him who is both young and wise

Beware the killer¹³ with lidless eyes.

“Yes, that’s all I can make out of it,” said the old doctor slowly. “Now what does that mean, I wonder?”

 

“I know,” gasped¹⁴ Nibble, “I know—it’s Foul Fang the Rattlesnake. The little owls¹⁵ don’t want us to catch that fox, Silvertip, because he catches chickens and leaves their bones for the owls to pick. They heard Chaik and Jay and Chewee the Chickadee talking about it. So the he-owl has gone out to hire Foul Fang to help them. They’re going to pay him a mouse a day to do it. And his wife has gone up to the house to bargain with the grandson of Ouphe the Rat who lives in the walls. He’s to keep watch on Tommy and warn them what he means to do about Silvertip. But they don’t know where Silvertip is.”

 

“That’s one good thing,” the doctor nodded. “And another is that Silvertip has no friends—nor the owls, either. They only work for him because of what he gives them, and they have to hire their own helpers. Now all the woods know how you help any one who’s in trouble, and Tommy Peele has quite a few friends. I can’t see whether this warning is for you or for Tommy.”

 

“Tommy, of course. Watch the Dog says he’s the cleverest boy in all the world, and Watch is his dog, so he ought to know about him,” said Nibble promptly¹⁶.

 

“Hm,” laughed Doctor Muskrat into his whiskers. “Well, for a rabbit, you know a thing or two. What cheers me up is this. The stars never warn about something that’s surely going to happen. They warn so you can be careful and escape your enemies. Now I’ll set every bird who drinks here at the pool to keep watching for Foul Fang. And I’m going over to the stump¹⁷ right now to send out word to all the fieldmice.”

 

“And I’ll go back to the Brushpile,” said Nibble, “and listen to the Bad Little Owls when they come to their hole in the morning.”

 

Off set the rabbit, lipity-lipity, scudding¹⁸ under the brush and over the shadows and through the grasses, until he snuggled down in a nice little pocket where only a mouse could have found him. And about dawn he heard the screech owls.

 

“It’s all fixed,” said the he-owl. “I found Foul Fang, and he knew where Silvertip was because he’d already smelled him (snakes say they smell any one instead of seeing him), and when I squawk the signal he’ll rattle⁹ and Silvertip will hear it and run. I didn’t find Silvertip because he stayed out hunting too long.”

 

“Fine,” said his wife. “And Tommy’s gun is all ready to start in the morning.”

1 nibble   

n.轻咬，啃；v.一点点地咬，慢慢啃，吹毛求疵

参考例句：

• Inflation began to nibble away at their savings.通货膨胀开始蚕食他们的存款。
• The birds cling to the wall and nibble at the brickwork.鸟儿们紧贴在墙上，啄着砖缝。

2 thicket   

n.灌木丛，树林

参考例句：

• A thicket makes good cover for animals to hide in.丛林是动物的良好隐蔽处。
• We were now at the margin of the thicket.我们现在已经来到了丛林的边缘。

3 screech   

n./v.尖叫；(发出)刺耳的声音

参考例句：

• He heard a screech of brakes and then fell down. 他听到汽车刹车发出的尖锐的声音,然后就摔倒了。
• The screech of jet planes violated the peace of the afternoon. 喷射机的尖啸声侵犯了下午的平静。

4 owl   

n.猫头鹰，枭

参考例句：

• Her new glasses make her look like an owl.她的新眼镜让她看上去像只猫头鹰。
• I'm a night owl and seldom go to bed until after midnight.我睡得很晚，经常半夜后才睡觉。

5 muskrat   

n.麝香鼠

参考例句：

• Muskrat fur almost equals beaver fur in quality.麝鼠皮在质量上几乎和海獭皮不相上下。
• I saw a muskrat come out of a hole in the ice.我看到一只麝鼠从冰里面钻出来。

6 sniffing   

n.探查法v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的现在分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说

参考例句：

• We all had colds and couldn't stop sniffing and sneezing. 我们都感冒了，一个劲地抽鼻子，打喷嚏。
• They all had colds and were sniffing and sneezing. 他们都伤风了，呼呼喘气而且打喷嚏。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

7 foul   

adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规

参考例句：

• Take off those foul clothes and let me wash them.脱下那些脏衣服让我洗一洗。
• What a foul day it is!多么恶劣的天气！

8 fang   

n.尖牙，犬牙

参考例句：

• Look how the bone sticks out of the flesh like a dog's fang.瞧瞧,这根骨头从肉里露出来，象一只犬牙似的。
• The green fairy's fang thrusting between his lips.绿妖精的尖牙从他的嘴唇里龇出来。

9 rattle   

v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓

参考例句：

• The baby only shook the rattle and laughed and crowed.孩子只是摇着拨浪鼓，笑着叫着。
• She could hear the rattle of the teacups.她听见茶具叮当响。

10 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

11 hopped   

跳上[下]( hop的过去式和过去分词 )； 单足蹦跳； 齐足（或双足）跳行； 摘葎草花

参考例句：

• He hopped onto a car and wanted to drive to town. 他跳上汽车想开向市区。
• He hopped into a car and drove to town. 他跳进汽车，向市区开去。

12 gliding   

v. 滑翔 adj. 滑动的

参考例句：

• Swans went gliding past. 天鹅滑行而过。
• The weather forecast has put a question mark against the chance of doing any gliding tomorrow. 天气预报对明天是否能举行滑翔表示怀疑。

13 killer   

n.杀人者，杀人犯，杀手，屠杀者

参考例句：

• Heart attacks have become Britain's No.1 killer disease.心脏病已成为英国的头号致命疾病。
• The bulk of the evidence points to him as her killer.大量证据证明是他杀死她的。

14 gasped   

v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要

参考例句：

• She gasped at the wonderful view. 如此美景使她惊讶得屏住了呼吸。
• People gasped with admiration at the superb skill of the gymnasts. 体操运动员的高超技艺令人赞叹。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

15 owls   

n.猫头鹰( owl的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• 'Clumsy fellows,'said I; 'they must still be drunk as owls.' “这些笨蛋，”我说，“他们大概还醉得像死猪一样。” 来自英汉文学 - 金银岛
• The great majority of barn owls are reared in captivity. 大多数仓鸮都是笼养的。 来自辞典例句

16 promptly   

adv.及时地，敏捷地

参考例句：

• He paid the money back promptly.他立即还了钱。
• She promptly seized the opportunity his absence gave her.她立即抓住了因他不在场给她创造的机会。

17 stump   

n.残株，烟蒂，讲演台；v.砍断，蹒跚而走

参考例句：

• He went on the stump in his home state.他到故乡所在的州去发表演说。
• He used the stump as a table.他把树桩用作桌子。

18 scudding   

n.刮面v.（尤指船、舰或云彩）笔直、高速而平稳地移动( scud的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Clouds were scudding across the sky. 云飞越天空。 来自辞典例句
• China Advertising Photo Market-Like a Rising Wind and Scudding Clouds. 中国广告图片市场：风起云涌。 来自互联网