Night heron

“ No doubt he thinks that he is. A man of that type is sure to overvalue his own strength; but look at him, citizen Heron. Surely you must see that we have nothing to fear from him now.”
Heron now was like a voracious creature that has two victims lying ready for his gluttonous jaws. He was loath to let either of them go. He hated the very thought of seeing the Englishman being led out of this narrow cell, where he had kept a watchful eye over him night and day for a fortnight, satisfied that with every day, every hour, the chances of escape became more improbable and more rare ”

“ The "Blue Crane" of the country dwellers is the "White-fronted Heron" of the bird-lover. "Fronted" in a bird name refers only to the forehead. Herons are valuable birds to the grazier, farmer, and irrigationist, for, in addition to insects and snails, they eat yabbies (fresh-water crayfish) , which bore into the banks and bed of irrigation channels, and so cause much loss of water by soakage.
Distinguished from these birds mainly by its nocturnal habit is the interesting Nankeen Night Heron, our one representative of a practically cosmopolitan genus. ”

“ A saker (unlike a peregrine) should not get a full feed of heron’s flesh, nor, generally speaking, of any water-bird’s flesh. Some sakers after a full meal of duck or heron will cast their gorge, sicken, and die. For some reason the flesh of the night-heron and of the purple heron is not injurious—at least I have never lost a saker by feeding one on the flesh of these birds. When entering a hawk to a difficult quarry, it is always advisable to kill at least one “train” under her, and to let her plume the feathers a little and eat some of the flesh: pigeons’ flesh may then be substituted. ”

“ There was a tradition in the family that the whilom lord of Heron Dyke set fire to the roof-tree of the old mansion with his own hand, hoping by such summary method to exorcise the ghost of a girl dressed in white and having a red spot on her breast, which would persist in rambling through the upper chambers of the house during that weird half-hour when the daylight is dying, and night has not yet come. ”

“ Who’s the man?... The Hawthorn two who fled! Gilbert Aderhold—Joan Heron!” Certain of these gallants had been in London and knew of the recapture. It had been common talk. The king had learned of it. “Joan Heron!—Joan Heron! Let’s see—let’s see! Grey eyes—gold hair—no, hair like bronze, pale bronze.... Would you dare to kiss a witch?”—“No!”—“Yes!”—“No!”—“Yes, I would!”—“To make the Devil jealous—that were a parlous thing!”—“Parlous or not, if she hath grey eyes and red lips—”—“Kiss her—clip her in thy arms and to-night she will come as succuba and kiss and clip thee! ”

“ He’s as suspicious as the devil!”
“I say, look here—a photo! Just look, man! ‘Harrison Nairn’ on the back of it! Quite a decent-looking chap. Heron, I wonder who she is?”
“God knows! I don’t!”
“Someone else’s, you can bet, or he wouldn’t lie so low, eh?”
“H’m! looks devilish like it.”
“I say, Heron.”
“What?”
“I wonder what he’d say if he heard us, eh?”
“Shut up, man; go to sleep!”
“I say! The ideal white man—‘a possible enemy and a certain nuisance.’”
“For Heaven’s sake, man, shut up! They’ll hear you sniggering. Good-night!” ”

“ But the cry did not come from high in the air; it came from below, from the ground, up to me on the battlements of the tower. The heron does not fish at night."
The old man smiled pleasantly. "Do, my Cornelius, believe the old huntsman. It fishes at night when it has a brood to feed. I have myself caught one in the morning in the fishing-net which I had set the evening before."
"But that arrow was winged with the feathers of the--gray heron. And as often as the heron called, there answered still deeper out of the eastern forest the shrill cry of the black eagle." ”

“ He won’t be well for weeks,” said Nairn coolly. “How do you propose getting on at all, even if you do stay here to-night? What do you gain by the delay?”
Heron was somewhat taken aback.
“Well,” he answered, “we gain the daylight, anyway; that’s something.”
“Something—yes; but daylight won’t take you through the rivers with one pair of horses. They’ll be pretty fall, too, after to-night’s rain.”
“That’s true,” said Heron gloomily; “and it’s raining like old Harry now up at the headwaters. Look at the lightning over the Kaap Valley!” ”

“ Herons are shy, solitary birds, frequenting lakes, fens, and rivers, where they {88}may often be seen standing ankle-deep in the water, and watching with untiring patience for the prey which never seems to satisfy their appetite. They rarely swim and walk but little. The majority breed in large colonies; but Bitterns (Botaurus) , Little Bitterns (Ardetta) , and Green Herons (Butorides) are notable exceptions, being, moreover, skulking and nocturnal in habit, and agreeing in the latter respect with Night-Herons (Nycticorax) . ”

“ Heron, “Translator’s Preface to the Arabian Tales of Chaves and Cazotte.”
247. “Life in a Levantine Family” chapt. xi. Since the able author found his “family” firmly believing in The Nights, much has been changed in Alexandria; but the faith in Jinn and Ifrit, ghost and vampire is lively as ever. ”

“ On the contrary, when you intrude upon them while breeding, they rise silently on wing, alight on the trees near, and remain there until you depart.
The Snowy Herons breed in large communities; and so very social are they, that they do not appear even to attempt to disturb such other birds as are wont to breed among them, the Night Herons, for instance, the Green Herons, or the Boat-tailed Grakles. ”

“ Then they fell apart, and one of them, at any rate—the brown one—ran away in the shape of a water-vole—water-"rat," if you will—the heron making spear-lunges at him with his bill as he ungainlily skipped at the other's tail all the way up the bank. The other fighter, the black one, could not rightly be said to have turned into anything very much—at least, not anything that any one could swear to. It just seemed as if a dark blur whizzed about—more bird-like than beast-like—around the astonished and prancing heron, and then into nowhere. ”

“ From the very first day when he sat beside her in the tiny boudoir of the Square du Roule, and the heavy foot fall of Heron and his bloodhounds broke in on their first kiss, down to this hour which he believed struck his own death-knell, his love for her had brought more tears to her dear eyes than smiles to her exquisite mouth.
Her he had loved so dearly, that for her sweet sake he had sacrificed honour, friendship and truth; to free her, as he believed, from the hands of impious brutes he had done a deed that cried Cain-like for vengeance to the very throne of God. ”

“ The swift vertical flight with which the pursued ascends until it becomes a mere speck in the blue zenith, the hurried zigzag flight of the pursuer, rising every minute above its prey, only to be left below again by a single flap of the Heron’s wings, forms a sight of such grace, beauty, and power, as to fill the mind of the spectator with delight and astonishment.
When the enemy comes to close quarters, the Heron instinctively throws itself belly up to repel the assault with its long, crooked, cutting claws. Raptorial species possess a similar habit ”

“ JOAN HERON—The daughter of old Heron that had died of the plague. He brought her before his mind’s eye—a tall, grey-eyed girl sitting quietly in church. Save for that image she did not come into his mind with any force; he had, after all, no great knowledge of her. They were outlying people, the Herons, and then they had been away from Hawthorn. He was a man of the study and the pulpit and of crisises in the parish, rather than of any minute, loving, daily intercourse and knowledge; theologian rather than pastor. ”

“ It was a vigorous blow from Heron’s fist that brought him at last to his knees, and even then his hands did not relax their hold; they gripped the ornamental scroll of the gate, shook the gate itself in its rusty hinges, pushed and pulled with the unreasoning strength of despair. He had a sabre cut across his brow, and the blood flowed in a warm, trickling stream down his face. But of this he was unconscious; all that he wanted, all that he was striving for with agonising heart-beats and cracking sinews, was to get to his friend, who was lying in there unconscious, abandoned—dead, perhaps. ”

“ We feel, O Heron! that there is not only humanity—but poetry, in our being. Imagination haunts and possesses us in our pastimes, colouring them even with serious, solemn, and sacred light—and thou assuredly hast something priest-like and ancient in thy look—and about thy light-blue plume robes, which the very elements admire and reverence—the waters wetting them not—nor the winds ruffling—and moreover we love thee—Heron—for the sake of that old castle, beside whose gloom thou utteredst thy first feeble cry! A Ruin nameless, traditionless—sole, undisputed property of Oblivion! ”

“ They rise to a great height, and drift with the light wind towards their feeding-grounds by the river. Over the hedge flashes a snipe, rising like a brown bomb-shell from between our feet, and sending the heart into the mouth. The heron, which we have seen far off, standing in the shallows, apparently meditating on the vanity of earthly affairs, slowly and laboriously takes to flight. He cannot rise for the matter of a stone's-throw, and the heavy flaps of his labouring wings resound in the still morning. There is no warier bird than the heron when he gets a fair field. ”

“ So far everything had gone well; the prisoner had made no attempt at escape, and apparently did not mean to play a double game. But the crucial hour had come, and with it darkness and the mysterious depths of the forest with their weird sounds and sudden flashes of ghostly lights. They naturally wrought on the nerves of men like Heron, whose conscience might have been dormant, but whose ears were nevertheless filled with the cries of innocent victims sacrificed to their own lustful ambitions and their blind, unreasoning hates. ”

“ Marguerite could only just hear Heron speaking to the sergeant. Darkness enveloped every form and deadened every sound. Even the harsh voice which she had learned to loathe and to dread sounded curiously subdued and unfamiliar. Heron no longer seemed inclined to storm, to rage, or to curse. The momentary danger, the thought of failure, the hope of revenge, had apparently cooled his temper, strengthened his determination, and forced his voice down to a little above a whisper. ”

“ Lie down, and die gently by my side, and I will die with you, breaking my heart with happiness."
"No," said the grey heron, "do not die yet! Remember the two little moons that lie in the hollow among the reeds." Then he laid his head down by hers, being too weak to say more.
They folded their wings over each other, and closed their eyes; nor did they know that the Fairy was standing by them, till she stroked them both softly with her wand, saying to each of them the same words:
"Human heart, and human form, come out of the grey heron!" ”

“ Out of the juniper bush and the heather Lachlan, rising, pulled the fowling-piece, and, very slowly and reluctantly, removed the priming and the charge.
“Yet it is an evil bird,” he muttered between his teeth. “You must know that it is unlucky to meet a heron when one sets out on a journey.”
“Yes,” broke in Ewen Cameron impatiently, “in the same way that it is unlucky to meet a sheep or a pig—or a snake or a rat or a mouse, unless you kill them—or a hare, or a fox, or a woman, or a flat-footed man . ”

“ I didn't think Heron was the man to keel over in a faint, even for a thing like that. All the same, seeing that ghostly vision would account for his attack."
"I understand," said Clo. "I saw he was flabbergasted. But that first time at the door, when he was with his wife, he didn't look at me as if I were a stranger. It was as if he knew me, and almost fell over himself to see me again. That was the feeling I had, but I was—a little excited."
"Most girls would have been corpses!"
"I felt like a live coal. But we mustn't let the gang make a corpse of Mr. Heron, must we? Let's warn him. ”

“ Heron. He remained in the monastery for some months: first ill of a fever on the brain, then, after his recovery, as a teacher to our young pupils. When he grew stronger he became tired of our peaceful life; he left the monastery and wandered from place to place in Italy. But he had no money: he began to think of work. He was learned: he could teach: he thought that he might be a tutor. Shall I go on?"
"Good God!" said Percival, below his breath. He had actually turned pale, and was biting his moustache savagely. "Go on, sir!" he thundered, looking at Dino from beneath his knitted brows. ”

“ Though it was horrible to part, yet it was best, perhaps, that he should go back to his lodgings now, in case Heron sent his spies back to her door, and since he meant to consult with his chief. She had a vague hope that if the mysterious hero was indeed the noble-hearted man whom Armand represented him to be, surely he would take compassion on the anxiety of a sorrowing woman, and release the man she loved from bondage. ”

“ If it has a chance to dart its bill into the eye of its foe, it does not neglect so good an opportunity of utilising its small endowments. This is, in fact, a private lunge, a coup de grâce, and many a dog, hunting among the reeds, has felt the poignancy of this offensive weapon. We must, however, allow that the Heron is not always so fortunate, and that oftener than not he becomes a prey to his eager adversaries—the Eagle and the Falcon. ”