at siege. Taking with him Joan and another well-trained haggard falcon, and loosing their hoods so as to be ready for a flight, Petre (who loved to fly his hawks himself) left the company at a short distance, and dismounting approached the heron, being careful to keep under the wind, and concealing himself behind his horse.

At last the wary heron spied him, and, slowly rising, left the siege. As soon as he had flown a couple of hundred yards, the falcons were unhooded and cast off. Old Joan sighted him at once, the other falcon joined in, and the flight began.

The heron took in the position at a glance. The heronry lay up-wind, and was distant at least two miles. He could never succeed in making this point, flying in the teeth of the wind and pursued by two swift and eager falcons. The country on every side was bare, and afforded no prospect of shelter. Driven from earth in despair, he sought shelter in the clouds. Lightening himself by throwing overboard the result of the morning's fishing, he ascended to the heavens in spiral curves, making wide circuits as he mounted aloft. The higher the heron mounted, the higher soared the falcons. This is what the old falconers celebrate under the name of the mountey.' What circles they describe! There goes old Joan. Turning her back on the quarry, she rushes into the wind for full half a mile, and then, sweeping round in a vast circle, is carried high above the heron. The company can see them still, but it takes a sharp eye to know a hawk from a handsaw,'' even though the wind is southerly. If it were north-north-westerly, the birds, carried forward by the wind, would fly between the spectator and the sun, and to tell hawk from heron would be harder still. They can just see

1 Hamlet, ii. 2. 397.

2

2 The heron was also called heronshaw (heronsewe in Chaucer's Squier's Tale, and herounsew in John Russell's Boke of Nurture, circ. 1430), easily corrupted into handsaw. Shakespeare does not hesitate to put into the mouths of his characters vulgar corruptions of ordinary language, current in the stable or in the field. Thus Lord Sands talks of springhalt (stringhalt), and Biondello of fashions (farcy) and fives (vives). In the edition of Hamlet by Mr. Clarke

A FLIGHT AT THE HERON

215

old Joan close her wings, and precipitate herself with fell swoop on the heron. By a swift movement he narrowly escapes the blow. Meanwhile the second falcon has mounted over both. Stooping downward she dashes a few feathers from the heron's wing, and drives him nearer to the earth. Old Joan, by ringing into the wind, has more than recovered her advantage, and is preparing for a deadly stoop. The three birds are now nearer to the ground, and in full view of the company, who have followed as best they could, on foot and on horseback, the course of the flight, carried by the wind about a mile from the spot where the heron was found. They are in time to see the finish. Joan's second swoop hit the heron hard. Her mate renews the attack. In a moment Joan is bound to the heron. The second falcon comes in, and the three birds descend steadily to the ground.

The falcons have learned by experience to let go the heron as they approach the ground. They thus avoid concussion, and the danger of being spitted by the heron on his sharp, sword-like bill-a formidable weapon of defence. But the contest on the ground, which might have been fraught with danger to the falcons, was soon put an end to by the falconer, who seized the heron, and rewarding the falcons, hooded them, and restored them to the cadge.

Then followed some flights at the brook. This sport, in

and Mr. Aldis Wright, we find the suggestion that the north-westerly wind would carry the hawk and the handsaw between the falconer and the sun, with the consequence that they would be indistinctly seen, while it would be easy to tell the difference between them when the wind was southerly. I believe this to be the origin of the saying. It was probably a common one in Shakespeare's time, which naturally fell out of use with the practice of falconry. In aid of this suggestion, I may add that in an article on Falconry in the British Isles in the Quarterly Review (1875), an account of a flight at the heron is quoted from an old French writer, who describes the heronshaw as mounting directly towards the sun, pour se couvrier de la clarté. The soothsayer in Cymbeline (iv. 2. 350) notes as a portent that Jove's bird, the Roman eagle, vanished in the sunbeams.' This annoyance must have occurred constantly on a bright morning with a strong north-north-westerly wind. The angler who, under similar conditions, in order to have the wind in his favour, fishes with the glare of the sun in his eyes, can sympathise with Hamlet when he describes himself as mad north-northwest.' When the wind is southerly he can tell a rise from a ripple.

the opinion of some, ranked higher than heron hawking. For, as Turbervile says, although it [a flight at ye hearon] be the most noblest and stately flight that is, and pleasant to behold, yet is there no suche art or industrie therein as in the other flights. For the hawke fleeth the hearon moved by nature, as against hir proper foe; but to the river she fleeth as taught by the industrie and diligêce of the falconer.'

Whatever be the cause, I can find in the diary no record of the sport, and I must console myself with the knowledge that flights at the brook did not differ essentially from those in the field at partridge, although the mallard, being larger and stronger on the wing, afforded better sport, and, indeed, could not be successfully flown except by well-trained haggard falcons.

CHAPTER XIII

A DEAD LANGUAGE

Talking of hawking. . . Second Part of King Henry VI.

...

SHORTLY before eleven o'clock-the dinner hour at Petre Manor-the company reassembled in the old court-yard. Petre could, as we know, give an excellent account of the morning's sport. He was in high spirits, not only on this account, but by reason of some intelligence rapidly conveyed to him by his wife, who rode into the court-yard with her party shortly after the rest of the company had returned from flying at the brook. It is needless to say that they had nothing to show in the way of results, and Petre would doubtless have made merry at their expense, had he not feared to arouse suspicions in the mind of Will Squele. For the performances of Petre's merlins were well known to every Cotswold man, and the Lady Katherine and Anne Squele were too expert in the gentle art of falconry to come back empty-handed, had there not been some good reasons for the marring of their sport.

A few words sufficed to put William Silence in possession of Petre's scheme, and of the arrangements which Katherine had made with Anne for carrying it into effect. It only remained for William to make the necessary

his part, and for all to meet at the solem deer with cross-bow and greyhound, Justice for the "owing day.

solemn hunting. I do so the more readily inasmuch as, in not anticipating the events of the morrow, I am following the example of the diarist, from whose notes I can gather little beyond the facts that he excused himself from staying to dinner with his friends, and busied himself in preparation for what was to prove the most eventful day in his life.

Scanty as are the notes of the diarist, they may have served to impart to the reader some knowledge of the favourite sport of our forefathers-a pursuit interesting in itself, and deserving special attention, inasmuch at it has left its mark plainly traceable on the literature of the Elizabethan age. Even those who cared nothing for the sport do not fail to bear witness in their writings to the estimation in which falconry along with the other sports of the field—but in a pre-eminent degree-was then generally held.

Each popular sport or pastime tends to develop a language of its own, affected by its votaries, but generally distasteful to the outside public. The non-sporting guest at a country house in a hunting county, or the uninitiated visitor at a golfing hotel, conscious of missing the point of tales and allusions, commonly falls into the error of hurling at the offending sport the strong condemnation which ought to be directed against his own ignorance.

The language of falconry was picturesque, unique, and lent itself readily to poetical imagery. It was borrowed by men of letters, and affected by men of fashion, at one of the most interesting periods of our history. Incorporated with the literature of the day, it forms part of our inheritance from the Elizabethan age. As a sporting language it is long since dead; although, like Latin, it may be spoken here and there by a few learned professors. But three hundred years ago 'small Latin' was not more fatal to the reputation of a scholar than was ignorance of the language of falconry to the character of a gentleman. To'speak the hawking language' was, according to Ben Jonson, affected by those newer men,' who aped the manners of the older gentry.'

'Speech according to Horace.