s it was. On the green without, you might have seen
the motley assemblage of peasantry convened by report of the splendid
hunting, including most of our old acquaintances from Tewin, as well as
the jolly partakers of good cheer at Hob Filcher's. Gregory the jester,
it may well be guessed, had no great mind to exhibit himself in public
after his recent disaster; but Oswald the steward, a great formalist in
whatever concerned the public exhibition of his master's household state,
had positively enjoined his attendance. "What," quoth he, "shall the
house of the brave Lord Boteler, or such a brave day as this, be without
a fool? Certes, the good Lord St. Clere and his fair lady sister might
think our housekeeping as niggardly as that of their churlish kinsman at
Gay Bowers, who sent his father's jester to the hospital, sold the poor
sot's bells for hawk-jesses, and made a nightcap of his long-eared
bonnet. And, sirrah, let me see thee fool handsomely,--speak squibs and
crackers, instead of that dry, barren, musty gibing which thou hast used
of late; or, by the bones! the porter shall have thee to his lodge, and
cob thee with thine own wooden sword till thy skin is as motley as thy
doublet."

To this stern injunction, Gregory made no reply, any more than to the
courteous offer of old Albert Drawslot, the chief park-keeper, who
proposed to blow vinegar in his nose, to sharpen his wit, as he had done
that blessed morning to Bragger, the old hound, whose scent was failing.
There was, indeed, little time for reply, for the bugles, after a lively
flourish, were now silent, and Peretto, with his two attendant minstrels,
stepping beneath the windows of the strangers' apartments, joined in the
following roundelay, the deep voices of the rangers and falconers making
up a chorus that caused the very battlements to ring again.

Waken, lords and ladies gay,
On the mountain dawns the day;
All the jolly chase is here,
With hawk and horse and hunting-spear
Hounds are in their couples yelling,
Hawks are whistling, horns are knelling,
Merrily, merrily, mingle they,
"Waken, lords and ladies gay."

Waken, lords and ladies gay,
The mist has left the mountain gray;
Springlets in the dawn are streaming,
Diamonds on the brake are gleaming,
And foreste