The Tale of Oat Cake Crag - By Susan Wittig Albert Page 0,1

fact, I think it is fair to say that there is no place on this earth that gives the sun so much pleasure as this lovely green land, with its rambling rock walls, quiet lanes, tranquil waters, and long, sweet silences.

Ah, those silences! We modern folk, who live with the raucous roar of traffic, the ringing of telephones, the blare of radio and television, and the constant company of tiny gadgets that pour words and music into our ears, may find it hard to imagine how silent it was in the country in those long-ago days. Even people who lived at the time in London never failed to remark the superb silences of the countryside, broken only by the most natural of sounds. On any given day in the Lake District village of Near Sawrey, all that could be heard was the cautionary bleating of Tibbie and Queenie (Herdwick ewes-in-chief at Miss Potter’s Hill Top Farm), and the gossipy conversations of blue tits and finches, who spend the cold months deep in the hedges, busily doing as little as possible. One might occasionally hear the bell at St. Peter’s, or the cheerful ring of George Crook’s blacksmith’s hammer against the anvil, but these sounds seemed as natural as Tibbie and the blue tits. Indeed, this world was so peaceful and serene that you might think you had stepped into a pastoral painting, where the painter had lovingly recorded the whole lovely landscape, including everything but the sound.

Or perhaps not.

Certainly not if you happen to be Professor Galileo Newton Owl, D. Phil., who has just returned from a lengthy visit with Old Brown. The Professor’s cousin lives on an out-of-the way island in Derwentwater (made famous by Miss Beatrix Potter in her book The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin), which is cut off from communication. At this moment, dusk is falling, and the owl, his wings folded neatly, is perched atop the spreading oak on Oak Cake Crag, one of his favorite lookout posts. From the crag, a massive stone outcrop overlooking the blue waters of Windermere, he can see the full breadth of this fine lake. He cannot see its full length, however, for even though the Professor has excellent eyesight (especially just at dusk), Windermere is nearly eleven miles long, the longest lake in all England.

But he can certainly see and hear enough to be both greatly annoyed and even more greatly perplexed, although I doubt he would want me to tell you this. Professor Owl likes to believe that he knows everything about everything. When he encounters something he doesn’t understand, he becomes highly irritated. (Perhaps you know one or two people who resemble the Professor in this regard.) Just at this moment, he is deeply puzzled, and therefore annoyed and even somewhat frightened, by the enormous lot of noise and commotion produced by an extraordinary winged creature, as big as a boat—no, bigger than a boat, although not quite so big as a barn—that has risen out of the water at a spot near Cockshott Point and is flying up the lake in a northerly direction.

The Professor stared, incredulous. This thing, this ungainly, ungraceful, unbeautiful, boat-like creature, was flying? Flying?

Yes, flying. Not just whizzing along just above the surface of the water like a respectable goose or a Whooper swan, or splashing along first on one foot and then the other, as does the blue-footed booby you have seen in pictures. This creature had left the surface of the water on the far side of the lake and had already reached a height nearly level with the Professor’s oak tree. And as it turned and came closer, our owl could make out that, whilst the thing lacked a proper tail, it seemed to have two extra wings. There were four—four!—altogether, although as far as the owl could make out, none of the four seemed to flap, as of course, all wings should do.

The sight of this alien creature was startling enough, but there was more. Whereas the well-mannered flying creatures of the Professor’s acquaintance honked or hooted or crowed or croaked or quacked (each according to its nature), this one did none of that. Instead, it emitted an uncivil, earsplitting, high-pitched, frantic drone, like a billion buzzing bees, punctuated by ragged, irregular clattering coughs, quite as if the thing were choking to death.

“Who-who-whoooo?” the Professor muttered in astonishment and fright, opening both his eyes very wide. “What-what?”

Then he took a deep breath, summoned his imperial authority, lifted his