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As the people did not cease shouting and abusing him, he told them a fable: "A cowardly man went to the wars, and when he heard the cawing of the crows, he laid down his arms and sat still. Then he took up his arms and marched on, and they again began to caw, so he halted again.
Hubert's senses were taken with the beauty of the morning, and there came the thought, so delicious, 'All this is mine. He noticed the glitter of the greenhouses, and thought the cawing of some young rooks a sweet sound; a great tortoiseshell cat lay basking in the middle of the greensward, whisking its furry tail.
I fancied it came from a funeral pyre; we certainly smelled tar and petrol. The ground beneath rocked with the thundering of the distant cannon, and as one peal burst louder a flock of jet black crows mounted heavenward, mournfully cawing in the semi-twilight. So we continued, a silent, foot-sore, rain-soaked community.
The sky began to grow red toward the west once more, and the cawing rooks flew homeward, past the window where Percival sat waiting vainly for the summons which did not come. Hardwicke, released from his self-imposed duty, came to see if Percival would go with him for half an hour or so to the Latimer Arms. "I've got a kind of tea-dinner," he said "chops and that sort of thing.
Zac looked for a few moments, as if to see whether it was all right, and then gave a peculiar cry, something like the cawing of a crow, which he repeated three times. The sound was evidently heard, for at once there was a movement on board. Zac waved his hat. Then the movement stopped, and a boat shot out from the schooner, with a man in it, who rowed towards the headland.
On which the Father again laughed, and said he would understand this too better soon, and talked of other things, and took away Harry Esmond, and showed him the great old house which he had come to inhabit. It stood on a rising green hill, with woods behind it, in which were rooks' nests, where the birds at morning and returning home at evening made a great cawing.
The din grows louder and louder; fresh voices are coming in every minute; and the owl, wondering in some vague way if he is the cause of it all, flies off to some other tree where he can be quiet and go to sleep. Then, with a great rush and clatter, the crows follow, some swift old scout keeping close to the owl and screaming all the way to guide the whole cawing rabble.
Zeb was placed on the pillion behind him with both arms clutching his waist, and the Goodman strode ahead, his keen eyes watching in every direction for any sign of danger. There was not a sound in the forest except the soft thud of the horse's feet, the cawing of a crow circling out of sight over the tree-tops, and the shrill cry of a blue jay.
The rails of the fence were always occupied by young ones though never more than five or six at a time crying and shrieking and calling for "Ma-a!" and old ones all the time flying about half distracted, cawing and trying, I suppose, to enforce some order and discipline among the unruly rogues. Order, however, was quite a secondary consideration; the pressing duty of the hour was feeding.
And and," he faltered a moment later, "I often hear your dear dead mother's voice in yours." Then he was silent, and by the deep lines in his brow she knew that he was thinking. Outside, in the high elms beyond the level, well-kept lawn, with its grey old sundial, the homecoming rooks were cawing prior to settling down for the night.
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