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Updated: June 3, 2025
"'Tis but seven days ago that we were out together, Alpin and I," said Allan, "and never saw I a better trained pair of hawks than those that are now in keeping at Rothesay against the time when the tribute must be paid. We took seven birds that rose from the heronry of Barone. Alas! had Alpin but lived I had hoped to accompany him into Scotland that I might see King Alexander.
Mosquitoes also were particularly numerous, so that with the first streak of dawn we were only too thankful to cast off and continue our journey. During the morning we passed through pleasant scenery, and I observed a heronry in some dead trees on the left, while a deer swam the creek two hundred yards ahead of the boat; the lake being reached shortly before noon. It was a refreshing sight.
He ploughed up his warren, and sowed it with corn; but, unluckily, his attention had been so much taken up by the fishery, the decoy, the geese, the thistles, and the hopes of the heronry, that he totally forgot his intention of making the best of all possible ditches round his plantation.
Walton Hall is situated on an island surrounded by its ancient moat, a lake of about five-and-twenty acres in extent. From the shores of the lake the land rises; parts of the slope, and nearly all the highest part, being covered with wood. In one wood there was a large heronry, in another a rookery.
When these important points had been adjusted, the party rode down the river, carefully looking on every side for the object of their game; but no heron was seen stalking on the usual haunts of the bird, although there was a heronry at no great distance.
As there is a large heronry and rookery on the trees on the islands, the variety of life there is very great. The writer saw in weather like that in the second week of February, 1902, about a hundred and fifty wild duck, thirty or forty widgeon, a few teal, a pochard, and a great number of water-hens.
This haughty answer, and the disappointment of all his hopes and schemes respecting the heronry, threw Marvel into a degree of rage scarcely inferior to what was felt by Sir Plantagenet. As he was galloping down the avenue from Plantagenet-hall, he overtook a young man, of a shabby appearance, who was mounted upon a very fine horse.
Marvel's loss was great, but his mortification still greater; for his cousin Goodenough laughed at him without mercy. Something must be done, he saw, to retrieve his credit: ad the heronry was his resource. "What will signify a few trees, more or less," thought he, "or the loss of a few silver sprigs, or the death of a few geese, or the waste of a few quills and feathers?
There was a heronry among the trees on the edge of it, but otherwise the marsh was not used save as a storehouse for the basket-makers. They made paniers, hampers, mews or wicker cages in which the hunting birds were kept when moulting, and even small boats from the osiers and reeds. But the greater part of the swamp was impassable to a boat and too insecure for foot-travel.
Now this heronry belonged to Sir Plantagenet Mowbray, an elderly gentleman, who was almost distracted with family pride: he valued himself upon never having parted with one inch of the landed property that had descended to him, through a long line of ancestors, from the Plantagenets.
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