All that long evening Adrian wandered about the causeways which pierced the meadowlands and marshes, pondering these things and picturing himself as having attained to the dignity of a grandee of Spain, perhaps even—who could tell—to the proud rank of a Knight of the Golden Fleece entitled to stand covered in the presence of his Sovereign. More than one snipe and other bird such as he had come to hawk rose at his feet, but so preoccupied was he that they were out of flight before he could unhood his falcon. At length, after he had passed the church of Weddinvliet, and, following the left bank of the Old Vliet, was opposite to the wood named Boshhuyen after the half-ruined castle that stood in it, he caught sight of a heron winging its homeward way to the heronry, and cast off his peregrine out of the hood. She saw the quarry at once and dashed towards it, whereon the heron, becoming aware of the approach of its enemy, began to make play, rising high into the air in narrow circles. Swiftly the falcon climbed after it in wider rings till at length she hovered high above and stooped, but in vain. With a quick turn of the wings the heron avoided her, and before the falcon could find her pitch again, was far on its path towards the wood. Once more the peregrine climbed and stooped with a like result. A third time she soared upwards in great circles, and a third time rushed downwards, now striking the quarry full and binding to it. Adrian, who was following their flight as fast as he could run, leaping some of the dykes in his path and splashing through others, saw and paused to watch the end. For a moment hawk and quarry hung in the air two hundred feet above the tallest tree beneath them, for at the instant of its taking the heron had begun to descend to the grove for refuge, a struggling black dot against the glow of sunset. Then, still bound together, they rushed downward headlong, for their spread and fluttering wings did not serve to stay their fall, and vanished among the tree-tops. “Now my good hawk will be killed in the boughs—oh! what a fool was I to fly so near the wood,” thought Adrian to himself as again he started forward.