Chapter Fourteen.
A Hawking Party.
“Hooha-ha-ha-ha!”
The cry of the falconer, followed by a whistle, as the hawks were unleashed and cast-off.
Away went they, jesses trailing, and bells tinkling, in buoyant upward flight. For the heron that had risen out of the sedge, intending retreat to its heronry, at sight of the enemy after it, suddenly changed direction, and was now making for upper air with all its might of wing.
The hawks were a cast of “peregrines” of the best strain. In perfect training, it needed no repetition of the hooha-ha-ha-ha to encourage them; for, as soon as their hoods were off, they had sighted the enemy, and shot like arrows after it.
At first their flight was direct—a raking off—but in drawing nearer the doomed bird it changed to gyrations as they essayed to mount above it. The heron, in a phrenzy of fright, uttered its harsh “craigh,” disgorged the contents of its crop, with a view of lightening itself, and made a fresh effort to escape skyward. In vain! The falcons, with quicker stroke of wing, notwithstanding their spiral course, were soon seen soaring over it. Then the foremost—for one was ahead—having gained the proper height, with spread “train,” and quivering “sails,” poised herself for the “stoop.” Only a second; then down swooped she at the quarry, “arm” outstretched and “pounces” set for raking it.
The attempt was unsuccessful. Rarely is heron touched at the first stoop. Unwieldy, and sluggish of flight as the creature may appear, it has a wonderful capacity for quickly turning, and can long elude hawk or falcon, if there be but one. When doubly assailed, however, by a cast, of trained peregrines, it is at a disadvantage, not having time to recover itself from the stoop of the one till the other is upon it.