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But if Capitola's by no means sweet temper had been tried that morning, it was destined to be still more severely tested before the day was over. Her second provocation came in this way: John Stone, another deserter of the birding party had that day betaken himself to Tip-top upon some private business of his own.
Di and Sancho have caught sight of the guns, and are capering about in the wildest excitement, for it is a long time since they have seen anything more "gamey" than a city pigeon. Birding over good dogs is the very poetry of field-sports. The silken-haired setter and the lithe pointer are as far the superiors of the half-savage hound as the Coldstream Guards are of the Comanches.
"Formerly," said Toa to us, "large parties of young men used to go out for a month together, but we have now other occupation for our time, and only now and then engage in the sport." "This is a funny sort of fishing in the air," said Dick. "I call it birding," I answered. "Very right," observed Toa; "I will show you how we fish some day." We caught several dozen pigeons during the morning.
Then she abode in the castle and her son grew up and was reared with the children of the King. They used to ride forth together a-hunting and birding and he became skilled in the chase of wild beasts and ravening lions and ate of their flesh, till his heart became harder than the rock.
Had salt been less scarce in the valley than it was, this was the very place to have gone birding with it. I remember that once, on an uninhabited island of the Gallipagos, a bird alighted on my outstretched arm, while its mate chirped from an adjoining tree.
If what thou seest or heard'st be ever muttered by thee Though in thy sleep, villaine, Ile pistol thee. Buz. Hum, it will not be safe to dreame of a knave shortly. Are you so good at a gun? if you use this too often your birding piece will scarce carry a yard levell. Hen. Come, dresse your hayre up & be wise at last: No more, I have done. Buz. So I thinke in my conscience, he hath done with her.
The reason is immensely plain. The British were all embodied and firm as a rock of granite; the Carolinians were scattered over the country loose as a rope of sand: the British all well armed and disciplined, moved in dreadful harmony, giving their fire like a volcano; the Carolinians, with no other than birding pieces, and strangers to the art of war, were comparatively feeble, as a forest of glow-worms: the British, though but units in number, were so artfully arranged that they told for myriads; while, for lack of unity, the Carolinians, though numerous as myriads, passed only for ciphers.
"A-birding on a Broncho" suggested an equally alliterative title for this chapter "Birding on a Bike"; but I will leave it to others, for those who go a-birding are now very many and are hard put to find fresh titles to their books. For several reasons it will suit me better to borrow from Cobbett and name this chapter "Rural Rides."
They were bronzed, weather-beaten tarpaulins, with hard mahogany faces, variously armed with birding pieces, cutlasses, or pistols.
One day Cap had had what she called "a row with the governor," that is to say, a slight misunderstanding with Major Warfield; a very uncommon occurrence, as the reader knows, in which that temperate old gentleman had so freely bestowed upon his niece the names of "beggar, foundling, brat, vagabond and vagrant," that Capitola, in just indignation, refused to join the birding party, and taking her game bag, powder flask, shot-horn and fowling piece, and calling her favorite pointer, walked off, as she termed it, "to shoot herself."
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