And so we parted with little sorrow after
all, for it was quite likely that I should be back here in a day or
two for yet a little while longer with him.
So I and my men were blithe as we rode in the still frosty air
across the Quantocks by the way we had come, and by and by, when we
gained the wilder crests, I began to look about me for some chance
of proving the good hawk that sat waiting my will on my wrist.
Soon I saw that the rattle and noise of men and horses spoiled a
good chance or two for me, for the black game fled to cover, and
once a roe sprang from its resting in the bushes by the side of the
track and was gone before I could unhood the bird.
"Ho, Wulf!" I cried to one of the men who was wont to act as
forester when Ina hunted, "let us ride aside for a space, and then
we will see what sort of training a Welshman can give a hawk."
So we put spurs to our horses and went on until they were a mile
behind us, and then we were on a ridge of hill whence a long wooded
combe sank northward to the dense forest land at the foot of the
hills, and there we rode slowly, questing for what might give us a
fair flight. Bustard there were on these hills, and herons also,
for below me I could see the bare branches of the tree tops on
which the broad-winged birds light at nesting time, twigless and
skeleton-like.
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