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From this case, a most innocent form of poaching, he went on to relate how he had once been able to deprive a cunning poacher and bad man, a human sparrowhawk, of his quarry. There were two persons in the village, father and son, he very heartily detested, known respectively as Old Gaarge and Young Gaarge, inveterate poachers both.
The boy's wish to stay on the Sparrowhawk expressed in this letter to his father was not fulfilled, for a month after his arrival in the Mediterranean he was transferred to the Leviathan, of 74 guns, commanded successively by Captains F. W. Burgoyne and Thomas Briggs.
The chief falconer, with a long-winged hawk in her hood and jesses upon his wrist, was stationed somewhat near the gateway, and close to him were his attendants, each having on his fist a falcon gentle, a Barbary falcon, a merlin, a goshawk, or a sparrowhawk. Thus all was in readiness, and hound, hawk, and man seemed equally impatient for the sport.
"Luck, 'most all luck," she disclaimed modestly, though her eyes lighted with sudden pleasure; and he knew her boy's vanity had been touched by his trifle of tempered praise. "Luck be blowed!" broke out the long mate, Sparrowhawk, his face shining with admiration. "It was hard work, that's what it was. We earned our pay. She worked us till we dropped. And we were down with fever half the time.
One or two pairs, perhaps more, breed on the before-mentioned rock close to Jethou "La Fauconnière," though a few pairs of Kestrels breeding there would scarcely have been sufficient to give it its name. It is mentioned in Professor Ansted's list, but only marked as occurring in Guernsey and Sark. There are two specimens, a male and female, in the Museum. SPARROWHAWK. Accipiter nisus, Linnaeus.
His head is as small as that of a sparrowhawk, his eye large and quick, his body thick, his leg strong in the beam, and his spurs long, rough, and sharp. That is the bird for me. I will take him over to the cockpit at Prescot next week, and match him against any bird Sir John Talbot, or my cousin Braddyll, can bring."
And back it came, day after day, steering compasses, blocks and tackles, sails, coils of rope, medicine chests, ensigns, signal flags everything, in fact, except the trade goods and supplies which had already been kai- kai'd. Of course, she gave them a few sticks of tobacco to keep them in good humour." "Sure she did," Sparrowhawk broke forth.
Your goats are become wild, your orchards are destroyed, your birds are fled, and nothing is heard but the cry of the sparrowhawk, who skims around the valley of rocks. As for myself, since I behold you no more, I am like a father bereft of his children, like a traveller who wanders over the earth, desolate and alone."
I am happy to say that I am in perfect health and have been so ever since I left you, and the hot country does not at all oppress me, or make me uncomfortable, as I expected it would at first, and I have not had a moment's sickness since I have been out. I can only say that I am in every way so comfortable on the Sparrowhawk that I have no desire to quit her at all.
When we get to Genoa I shall see Lord Exmouth, but I will not give your letter until I hear from you again, but I shall tell him I have written to you concerning the Sparrowhawk, and beg to remain in her till I hear from you. 'I shall now give you some short description of our voyage.
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