Once more to the marsh at the base of Ruardean Hill, the party almost identical with that which had repaired thither two years before. And as before rang out the falconer’s hooha-ha-ha-ha! and shrill whistle, as a heron rose up from the sedge; again a white heron, the great egret! Singular coincidence, and strangely gratifying to the fair owner of the peregrines, for she especially wanted an egret. How she watched as it made for upper air, with the falcons doing their best to mount above it; watched with eager, anxious eyes, fearing it might get away. Not that she was cruel, only just then she so desired to have a white heron; would give anything for one.
She did not need to have a fear. Van Dorn had done his duty by the hawks, and, the chased bird had no chance of escaping. Soon its pursuers were seen above it, with spread trains and quivering sails; then one stooped, raked, and rose over again; while the other stooped to bind; both ere long becoming bound; when all three birds came fluttering back to earth.
With triumphant “whoop?” the falconer pronounced it a kill; but this time, seemingly without being told, he plucked out the tail coverts, and handed them to his young mistress. Days before, however, Van Dorn had received injunctions to procure such if possible. There was a hat that wanted a plume.
“To replace that you lost, dear Eustace,” she said, passing them over to him.
“’Tis so good of you to think of it, darling?”
How different their mode of addressing one another from the time when they were last upon that spot! No painstaking coyness now; but heart knowing heart, troth plighted, and loves mutually reliant.
“I shall take better care of this one,” he added, adjusting the feathers into a panache. “Never man sadder than I when the other was taken from me. For I feared it would be the loss of what I far more valued.”
“Your life. Ah! so feared I when I heard you were wounded—”
“No, not my life,” he said, interrupting. “Something besides.”
“What besides?”