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They strolled on through the sweet May evening on beneath a great beech hanger, where cushats cooed softly among the green mast, and the air was musical with the sweet piping of thrushes and the caw of homing rooks. Here and there a gap in the hawthorn hedge disclosed a glimpse of red-tiled roof and farm stack and nestling among the trees of the park the chimneys of the Hall.
Still, there are always the pigeons and the cushats, the wicked magpies and the screaming "jaypies," as the local people call the jays.
Him did he pursue and run after with as much vigour and swiftness as if it had been a bolt out of a crossbow, and caught him in a moment; and whilst he was in his course he with his hands took in the air four great bustards, seven bitterns, six and twenty grey partridges, two and thirty red-legged ones, sixteen pheasants, nine woodcocks, nineteen herons, two and thirty cushats and ringdoves; and with his feet killed ten or twelve hares and rabbits, which were then at relief and pretty big withal, eighteen rails in a knot together, with fifteen young wild-boars, two little beavers, and three great foxes.
The 'white-blossomed slaes' sweetened the air, and the distant hills were gay with golden whin and broom, or flushed with the purply-red of the bell heather. We heard the note of the cushats from a neighbouring bush. They used to build their nests on the ground, so the story goes, but the cows trampled them.
As soon as the cushats began to fly from the woods to the fields, and the hillsides were streaked with grey motes of light, Big Harry and his son rowed into the cove, and then Little Harry went to catch the old mare on the moor. A boy drove the night's fish to the station, and Big Harry slept heavily in the dark box bed. Father and sons led this life for many years.
They would suppose some accident prevented you from fulfilling the intention. Especially if you go to-day." Silence for a couple of minutes. Then Grandcourt said, "What men are invited here with their wives?" Lush drew out a note-book. "The Captain and Mrs. Torrington come next week. Then there are Mr. Hollis and Lady Flora, and the Cushats and the Gogoffs."
An' let me see there's the thorn where the cushats biggit; an' there's the auld birk that I ance fell aff an' left my shoe sticking i' the cleft. I can tell ye, birkies, either the deer's grave or bonny Jane Ogilvie's is no twa yards aff the place where that horse's hind-feet are standin'; sae ye may howk, an' see if there be ony remains."