Ethelnoth took two men with him, and my two comrades were with me--Kolgrim leading the hounds in leash beside his horse. We went across the first hillside, and from its top looked northward and westward as far as one could see over the strange grey wastes of the moorland.
Then from the heather almost under our feet rose a great bustard that ran down wind with outstretched wings before us, seeking the lonelier country. Kolgrim whooped, and slipped the leash, and the hounds sprang after it, and we followed cheering. It was good to feel the rush of hillside air in our faces, and the spring and stretch of the horses under us, and to see the long-reached hounds straining after the great bird that might well be able to escape them.
I suppose that Ethelnoth started a second bird. I did not look behind me to see what any man was doing, but followed the chase round the spur of a granite-topped hillside, and forgot him. For when the bustard took wing for a heavy flight, and lit and ran again, and again flew with wings that failed each time more and more, while the strong legs were the stronger for the short rest, and when the good hounds were straining after it, one could not expect me to care for aught but that.
It had been strange if I thought of anything but the sport. I knew there were two horsemen close by, a little wide on either flank, but behind me. So we took the bird after a good chase, and then I knew that we had in some way shaken off the Saxons, and that we three vikings were together. It did not trouble us, for one looks for such partings, and Ethelnoth had his own bounds. So we went on, and found another bustard, and took it.
"Now we must go back," I said; "one must have a thought for the king's horses."
So we turned, and then a heron rose from a boggy stream below us, and that was a quarry not to be let go. I unhooded the falcon and cast her off, and straightway forgot everything but the most wonderful sight that the field and forest can give us--the dizzy upward climbing circles of hawk and heron, who strive to gain the highest place cloudwards, one for attack, the other for safety.
The evening sunlight flashed red from the bright under feathers of the strong wings as the birds swung into it from the shadow of the westward hill, and still they soared, drifting westward with the wind over our heads. Then with a great rushing sound the heron gave up, and fell, stone-like, from the falcon that had won to air above him at last. At once the long wings of his enemy closed halfway, and she swooped after him.
Then back and up, like a sword drawn at need, went the heron's sharp beak; and the falcon saw it, and swerved and shot past her nearly-taken prey. Again the heron began to tower up and up with a harsh croak that seemed like a cry of mockery; then the wondrous swing and sweep of the long, tireless wings of the passage hawk, and the cry of another heron far off, scared by its fellow's note; and again for us a canter over the moorland, eye and hand and knee together wary for both hawk above and good horse below, till the falcon bound to the heron, and both came to the ground, and there was an end in the grey shadow of the Dartmoor tors. Ay, but King Alfred's hawk was a good one!
"Now, where shall we seek Ethelnoth?" I said.
"No good seeking him," said Harek. "We had better make our way back to the village."