Bustard

“ THE BUSTARD-SHOOTER—TRIUMPH!
Beyond the corn-land lay undulated manchones, or fallows, clothed with a short growth of grass and thistles, and here on the summit of a flat-crowned knoll, a mile away, we descried a band of eight bustards. Hardly could a more unfavourable spot be selected. Their sentries commanded every visible approach, and we advanced in Indian file to reconnoitre, with the conviction that any operation must be in the nature of a forlorn hope. But a skill and rapid perception of the least advantage, worthy of a field-marshal, were at work, directed against the hapless eight. ”

“ Bustard, bus′tard, n. a genus of birds, sometimes made the type of a large family, usually ranked in the order of marsh birds like the cranes. [Fr. bistard, corr. from L. avis tarda, slow bird.]
Bustle, bus′l, v.i. to busy one's self noisily: to be active, often with more noise than actual work.—n. ”

“ During the greater part of the year the bustards are far too wary to be obtained by the farm-hands and shepherds who see them every day; and so accustomed are the peasants to the sight of these noble birds that little or no notice is taken of them. Their haunts and habits not being studied, their pursuit is regarded as impracticable. There is, however, one period of the year when the Great Bustard falls an easy prey to the clumsiest of gunners. ”

“ It is to be feared, moreover, that any such attempts have but little chance of success in the future, for the bustard is a native of open downs and fallows, where it must live an undisturbed and untrammelled existence, and in England at the present day this is almost an impossibility in country of that description. In this respect the bustard stands at a great disadvantage in comparison with the capercaillie, whose reintroduction into the forests of Scotland was a relatively easy matter. ”

“ In some of its habits it resembles the Bustard, and is said even to associate, in Northern Africa, with the Lesser Bustard. Its favourite places of resort are extensive plains; it runs rapidly when disturbed, and when it does take wing, flies for a considerable distance near the ground before mounting into the air. ”

“ Whilst in flight the neck and legs are stretched forwards, and the hinder part of the body kept low, thus imparting an indescribable peculiarity to the bird when seen in the air. The voice of the Great Bustard is so low as to be scarcely audible except at a short distance. ”

“ That he is frequently shot is no disproof of this assertion. The birds being abundant, it would be strange indeed if none fell "haphazard" to chance shots when the sportsman is in pursuit of other game.
The habits of the Little Bustard are, in general, much the same as those of the larger species. They frequent, in the main, the same ground; the young are reared amidst the security of the ripening corn; in autumn they form into packs or bands, and spend their days upon the open plain. ”

“ The animal is a very imitative one, the bustard; being especially fond of imitating whatever it sees a man do; and accordingly it does whatever it sees the hunters do. And they, standing opposite to it, anoint themselves under the eyes with some unguent, having prepared other different unguents calculated to close up the eyes and eyelids; and these other unguents they place in shallow dishes near the bustards. And so the bustards, seeing the men anoint themselves under the eyes, do the same thing also themselves, taking the unguents out of these dishes ”

“ Young bustards reared thus become extremely tame, coming to call and feeding from the hand, though when old the males are apt to grow vicious in spring, attacking savagely children, dogs, and even women, especially those whom they see to be afraid. ”

“ On the dining-room floor, close to the window wide open to the icy night, lay a man's form, and over him bent another man cruelly, with all the animus of a bird of prey.
The under man was Ruggles, Bulstrode's butler, his eyes starting from their sockets, his mouth open, his color livid; he couldn't have called out, for the other man had seized his necktie, twisted it tight as a tourniquet around the man's gullet, and so kneeling with one knee on his chest, Waring held the big man under. ”

“ Buzzard, I never seed any gold eyes in my life. Won't you jes' put your eyes up to de hollow so I kin see 'em?'
"Den de buzzard he got up and put his eyes to de hollow, and de rabbit throwed a whole lot of fish bones and trash in his eyes, and fill his eyes full of trash and fish bones. So de buzzard had to fly down to de ground and set down wid his back to de tree to pick de trash and fish bones out of his eyes. Den Mr. Rabbit he jumped down, and away he was gone through de woods long 'fore de fox come back wid de fire. ”

“ She wore her furs, muff, and big enveloping stole, her hat with fur on it, and a veil. She was not in house or garden trim. The urban air of her toilet was a surprise to Bulstrode, and he took in her readiness for something he had not expected, something great, something decisive.
"It's good of you to come when you must be full of delightful ways of passing your time, Mr. Bulstrode," she said, "and I wanted so much to see you again." ”

“ He felt humiliated. That is just another way of saying shamed. Yes, Sir, Buster felt that he was shamed in the eyes of his neighbors, and he wanted nothing so much as to get away by himself, where no one could see him, and [Pg 107] try to get rid of that dreadful pail. But Buster is so big that it is not easy for him to find a hiding place. So, when he reached the Green Forest, he kept right on to the deepest, darkest, most lonesome part and crept under the thickest hemlock-tree he could find.
But it was of no use. The sharp eyes of Sammy Jay and Blacky the Crow saw him. ”

“ The Duchess, who had been working, dropped her bit of muslin and looked, with her cherry lips parted and her great serious eyes, for all the world like a lady in a gift book. Her face was eighteenth century and child-like.
Bulstrode nodded. "Oh, yes, you've got so easily the upper hand, the very least of you, you know, over the best of us. It's such an unfair supremacy. You've got such a clever knowledge of little things, such a sense of the scale of the feelings, and you certainly make the very most of your power over us all. ”

“ If I could suddenly master that chap with my fists after months of dissipation——"
Bulstrode finished for him:
"You can master the rest."
"Don't give me any extra money," pleaded the tramp, as if he foresaw his friend's impulse. "Pay my ticket out West, if you will, and write to the man who is there, and I'll start in."
Bulstrode beamed on him.
"You're a man," he assured him—"a man." ”

“ Buster rounded the stake first. There was a grin on his face as if he anticipated an easy victory now. He immediately increased his lead until he had placed considerable distance between himself and his rivals.
Then he unfortunately turned his head to look back. Buster should have known better. It is always a dangerous thing to do, whether when fleeing from a burning city or trying to win a boat race.
Lot's wife was turned into a pillar of salt from looking back; but Buster simply rolled gracefully out of his tub into the Harrapin river. ”

“ No, I couldn't; no woman who wants love is content with pity. I would rather starve than take money from you although I have lived on your money for years. I would rather be unhappy than take what you could offer me for love. You mustn't speak; you mustn't ask me. The temptation is very great, you know, and it might wreck me. No, Mr. Bulstrode, and the reason why I say it is because I've seen."
"'I've seen?'" he repeated her words. "You've seen, but what do you mean—what have you seen?"
"I'm going to tell you why I sent for Prince Pollona, although you don't ask me. ”

“ Bulstrode came back to the castle Christmas Day at nine o'clock. But the hour had the effect of being much earlier. The winter morning panoplied with festivity began its life slowly, and not all the day's brightness through which he had speeded his motor had yet come into the house. Bulstrode, drawn by it, went directly back to the room he had left several hours before, as though he expected still to find the woman he loved sitting before the extinguished fire. ”

“ The shrug of her shoulders was neither an indication of indifference nor a pretty desperation! it rather was a relinquishing of herself wholly to Fate—an abandon.
"What becomes of a happy woman who goes with the man she loves?"
"Her Fate," said her companion, "has no single history. She is most often disillusioned, many times tragic, and always disgraceful."
"Ah, hush," she said angrily, "you presume too far. If you only intended to lecture me—to condemn me—why did you come?"
At this sincerely humorous challenge Bulstrode smiled. ”

“ Bulstrode would have done so now that he was face to face with his quixotic folly, but his cab had been heard as well as his steps on the walk, and the door was opened by Miss Desprey herself. The girl's colorless face, her eyes spoiled with tears, and a pretty, sad dignity, which became her well, struck her friend with the sincerity and depth of her grief, and as the good gentleman shook hands with her he realized that less than ever in the world could he add a featherweight of grief to the burden of this helpless creature. ”

“ Bulstrode's naïve way of conciliating piety and worldliness, the nothingness of this life and the desirability of cut glass, the consciousness at once of filthy rags and the best damask, was not a sufficient relief from the weight of her husband's invariable seriousness. ”

“ As for the rest of it..." she turned away for a second towards the window, and Bulstrode saw how the hot blood had mounted and her eyes had changed when after a moment she came back to him again. She put out towards him a beseeching hand: "You above all men, who are faithful to an ideal, must not give me old platitudes!"
Bulstrode's head reeled. He felt like a man who after a narcotic finds his brain suddenly alight and real things grow strange. He wanted to rub his eyes. She appeared singularly to appreciate his daze. ”

“ I started, almost twitching my arm away from that of the Major's, turning half round, at the same instant, to look him in the face. Bulstrode smiled, but preserved his own self-possession, in the stoical manner common to men of fashion and easy manners, pursuing the discourse.
“I see that my frankness has occasioned you some little surprise,” he added; “but the truth is the truth; and I hold it to be unmanly for a gentleman who has made up his mind to become the suitor of a lady, to make any secret of his intentions;—is not that your own way of thinking, Mr. Littlepage?” ”

“ It means that I sever all relations with my people."
Bulstrode knocked the ash off his cigar and said thoughtfully:
"It's too bad! A choice, if there is one, is always too bad. There should in real things be no choice. ”

“ Bulstrode had given himself methodically another cup of tea, and helped himself now to sugar.
"Oh, atmosphere!" he repeated scornfully. "One can't live on air, you know. And I have been of the most colorless kind."
"Well, you've changed terribly," she accused him.
"I've only come down to solid earth," he explained. "And the earth's after all where we belong, Duchess. Stand firm, keep to your own part of it, and don't cloud-gaze, or somebody with a claim will knock you off your little foothold." ”

“ It is curious what patches of hardness and tenderness lie side by side in men's dispositions. Bulstrode seems the most unsympathetic fellow I ever saw about some people, and yet he has taken no end of trouble, and spent a great deal of money, on benevolent objects. ”

“ The lines and files of soft-footed, impersonal servants, the perfect stilted attention, the silence, and the inhumanness of a man's lonely life, became intolerable to Jimmy Bulstrode. Even though Frances, Duchess of Westboro', had truly said that the castle was a delightful home, Bulstrode began to wonder what that word comprised or meant: certainly nothing like his occupation of another man's house or like any life that is lived alone. ”

“ Bulstrode interrupted her impatiently:
"It would be more to the purpose if he were a born bread-winner and she were a dairy-maid!"
"Jimmy, how vulgar you are!"
"Very—" he was wonderfully sarcastic for him—"money is a very vulgar thing, my dear friend; it's as vulgar as air and bread and butter. It is like all other clean, decent vulgarity, it can be abused, but it's necessary to life."
Mrs. Falconer opened her eyes wide on this new Bulstrode.
"Why, what has happened to you?"
He made a comprehensive gesture: "Oh, I am always supporting a family!" ”

“ Any morning between eleven and twelve Bulstrode might have been seen in the Bois de Boulogne briskly walking along the Avenue des Acacias, his well-filled chest thrown out, his step light and assured; cane in hand, a boutonnière tinging the lapel of his coat; immaculate and fresh as a rose, he exhaled good-humor, kindliness, and well-being. ”

“ Take, for example, the common English name of this low-flying falcon, the most tamable and affectionate of his tribe, and therefore, I suppose, fastest vanishing from field and wood, the buzzard. That name comes from the Latin "buteo," still retained by the ornithologists; but, in its original form, valueless, to you. But when you get it comfortably corrupted into Provençal "Busac," (whence gradually the French busard, and our buzzard,) you get from it the delightful compound "busacador," "adorer of buzzards"—meaning, generally, a sporting person ”