All the birds were abroad, some upon the trees, singing their evensong, or making their evening meal; others soaring above, with design to make a meal of them. Of these a host; for nowhere are the predatory species more numerously represented than along the lower Wye. More numerous then than now; though still may be seen there the fish-eating osprey; oftener the kite, with tail forked as that of salmon; not unfrequently the peregrine falcon in flight swift as an arrow, and squeal loud as the neigh of a colt; and at all times the graceful kestrel, sweeping the air with active stroke of wing, or poised on quivering pinions, as upon a perch. In those days, eagles were common enough on the Wye; and just as the two men had taken stand by the Buckstone, a brace of these grand birds came over; the owners of an eyrie in the Coldwell rocks, or the Windcliff. After a few majestic gyrations around the head of Staunton-hill, with a scream, they darted across the river to Great Doward, and thence on to quarter Coppet Wood. But he using the telescope, as his companion, took no more notice of them than if they had been but skylarks. Nor looked they on that lovely landscape with any eye to its beauties. They were neither tourists nor naturalists, but soldiers; and just then, man, with his ways alone, had interest for them. Both were in uniform; the elder--though there was no great difference in their ages--wearing that of a Colonel in the Parliamentary army; a rank which, in these modern days, when military titles are so lavishly bestowed, would seem as nothing. But in those times of a truer Conservatism, even though the social fabric was being shaken to its foundation, a colonel held as high command as a major-general now. So with him who had the telescope to his eye; for it was Colonel Edward Massey, the military Governor of Gloucester. And the other was a colonel, too, on the Parliamentary side; though in uniform of a somewhat irregular kind. Dressed as a Cavalier, but with certain insignia, telling of hostility to the Cavalier's creed; one especially proclaiming it, with bold openness--this, a bit of gold embroidery on the velvet band of his hat, representing a crown, thrust through and through by a rapier. Fair fingers had done that deft needlework, those of Sabrina Powell. For he who displayed the defiant symbol was Sir Richard Walwyn. Why the two colonels were together, and there, needs explanation. Many a stirring event had transpired, many a bloody battle been fought, since the surrender of Bristol to Rupert; and among them that most disastrous to him as to the King's cause--Marston Moor. It had changed everything; as elsewhere, freeing the Forest of Dean from the Royalist marauders, who had been so long its masters. Massey had himself dealt them a deadly blow at Beachley; routing Sir John Wintour's force, caught there in the act of fortifying the passage a crass the Severn.