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I am told he governs like a gerfalcon, of which I am very glad, and my lord the duke, of course, also; and I am very thankful to heaven that I have not made a mistake in choosing him for that same government; for I would have Senora Teresa know that a good governor is hard to find in this world and may God make me as good as Sancho's way of governing.
In falconry we call it 'noble' because it rises over the quarry, and wheeling, drops upon it from above. This white bird is a gerfalcon from the north. It is also 'noble! Here is a merlin, and this tiercelet is a falcon-heroner." I asked her how she had learned the old language of falconry. She did not remember, but thought her father must have taught it to her when she was very young.
Madden explains, not only does the true falcon, be she peregrine, gerfalcon, merlin, or hobby, differ in size and structure of wing and beak from the short-winged hawks, but she also differs in her method of hunting and seizing her prey. The falcons are "hawks of the tower and lure."
The object to which the Prince had pointed was but a black dot in the southern sky, but his strained eyes had not deceived him, and both Bishop and King agreed that it was indeed a heron, which grew larger every instant as it flew in their direction. "Whistle him off, sire! Whistle off the gerfalcon!" cried the Bishop. "Nay, nay, he is overfar. She would fly at check."
'See the mon wi' a face like a gerfalcon, cried one, pointing to Saxon; ''tis he that slew the Philistine officer yestreen, an' brought the faithful off victorious. 'Mark ye yon other one, cried an old dame, 'him wi' the white face an' the clothes like a prince. He's one o' the Quality, what's come a' the way froe Lunnon to testify to the Protestant creed.
And Lodbrok answered that she was an Iceland gerfalcon from the far northern ocean, and went on to tell us of her powers of flight, and at what game she was best, and how she would take her quarry, and the like. And Beorn sat down and feigned to pay no heed to us. Presently the Dane said that he had known gerfalcons to fly from Iceland to Norway in a day, and at that Beorn laughed as in scorn.
So would it be if the falcon were to flee from the duck, and the gerfalcon from the heron, and the great pike from the minnow, and if the stag were to chase the lion; so do things go topsy-turvy. But a desire comes upon me to give some reason why it happens to true lovers, that wit and courage fail them to express what they have in their thoughts when they have leisure and opportunity and time.
Point the finger of scorn at little Archibald Jamison Purdue Fitzwilliams Updyke Wrennfeather, who will be Duke of Chepstow one day; for only last night his lordship's noble mother rubbed his hollow chest with goose grease and tied a red flannel round his neck, and this morning his gerfalcon nose is running, as the British would have run at Waterloo had not "would-to-God-Bluecher-would-come" come up.
"Be that as it may," said Sancho, "'pledges don't distress a good payer, and 'he whom God helps does better than he who gets up early, and 'it's the tripes that carry the feet and not the feet the tripes; I mean to say that if God gives me help and I do my duty honestly, no doubt I'll govern better than a gerfalcon.
"What is lost to the Church is gained by the loser." But a most unlooked-for chance deprived the Bishop's altar cloth of its costly mending. The King's gerfalcon having struck down a rook, and finding the sport but tame, bethought herself suddenly of that noble heron, which she still perceived fluttering over Crooksbury Heath.
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