While contemplating this beautiful combe, the colonel fell into a reverie, which Dulcia did not care to disturb, and Eustace Saxby remained at a little distance behind them. The silence, therefore, was unbroken, until a blithe voice was heard singing:
‘In my conceit, no pleasure like to hawking there can be:
The tongue it lures, the legs they leap, the eye beholds the glee;
No idle thought can harbour well within the falconer’s brain,
or though his sports right pleasant be, yet are they mixed with pain.
He lures, he leaps, he calls, he cries, he joys, he waxeth sad,
And frames his mood, according as his hawk doth ill or bad.”
“Ah! art there, Ninian?” the colonel exclaimed, as, recognizing the voice of the singer, he looked back and perceived the young falconer descending the slope towards them. “I ought to chide thee for disobeying orders. But i’ faith! I am not sorry thou hast come after us.”
Ninian, who had disencumbered himself of his cross-bow, and brought a hawking-pole with him instead, laughed cheerily, and went on with his song:
“At cockpit some their pleasures place to wager health away,
Where falconers only force the fields to hear the spaniels bay.
What greater glee can man desire, than by his cunning skill,
So to reclaim a haggard hawk, as she the fowl shall kill;
To make and man her in such sort, as tossing out a train,
Or but the lure, when she’s at large, to whoop her back again?”
“Well sung, i’ faith, lad!” exclaimed the colonel, as Ninian drew near him. “There is good sense in thy ballad.”
“It is written by old Geordie Turbervile,” Ninian replied. “There is more of it, if your honour and Mistress Dulcia have patience to listen.” And he struck up again:
“When hawks are hurt and bruis’d by rash encounter in the skies,
What better skill than for their harms a powder to devise,
To dry the blood within the bulk, and make the mummy so
As no physician greater art on patients can bestow?
To cut her hoods, to shape her jess, her tyrets, and her line,
With bells and bewets, varvels eke, to make the falcon fine,
Believe me is no common skill, nor every day devise,
But meet for civil, courtly men that are reputed wise.”
“A good song, and well trolled,” cried the colonel. “But let us set forward.”
Taking their way over several gentle undulations, covered with the softest sward, and still keeping on the uplands, the party, ere long, approached a large barn, in front of which was a stubble-field, and here, as a covey of partridges was pretty sure, to be found the spaniels were uncoupled, and set free by Niniang while the colonel took the merlin from the elder Saxby, and began to unstrike her hood.
After ranging for a while within the new-shorn field, bounding from ridge to ridge, and leaving scarce an inch of ground untried, the dogs became suddenly motionless, and Eustace Saxby, who, with his son, had followed them cautiously, now gave a sign to his master, by raising his hand, that the partridges were found.
The colonel then advanced, and when within a short distance of the falconers, unhooded the merlin, and cast her from his fist, crying out, “Hey, gar! gar!” No sooner was the merlin upon the wing, than, urged by Eustace, the spaniels rushed in and sprung the partridges. After them darted the hawk, while the terrified birds, instantly perceiving their danger, strove to escape by rapid flight—vainly strove, as it turned out, for with marvellous quickness two of their number were stricken to the ground by the merlin, and almost as quickly retrieved by the spaniels, who, guided and incited by the cries of the falconers, followed the flight of the hawk.
At this moment, and while the partridges, scattered in their terror, were still upon the wing, the Barbary falcon, which had been committed to Dulcia, was unhooded by her and cast off, and with inconceivable swiftness joined her companion in the chase. All was now animation and excitement, the falconers shouting and encouraging dogs and hawks, and loudly applauding every successful stroke of the latter, the colonel riding after them shouting likewise, and closely attended by Dulcia.