rs have busy been,
To track the buck in thicket green;
Now we come to chant our lay:
"Waken, lords and ladies gay."

Waken, lords and ladies gay,
To the green-wood haste away;
We can show you where he lies,
Fleet of foot, and tall of size;
We can show the marks he made
When 'gainst the oak his antlers frayed;
You shall see him brought to bay,
"Waken, lords and ladies gay."

Louder, louder chant the lay,
"Waken, lords and ladies gay;"
Tell them, youth and mirth and glee
Run a course as well as we.
Time, stern huntsman, who can baulk,
Staunch as hound, and fleet as hawk?
Think of this, and rise with day,
Gentle lords and ladies gay.

By the time this lay was finished, Lord Boteler, with his daughter and
kinsman, Fitzallen of Harden, and other noble guests had mounted their
palfreys, and the hunt set forward in due order. The huntsmen, having
carefully observed the traces of a large stag on the preceding evening,
were able, without loss of time, to conduct the company, by the marks
which they had made upon the trees, to the side of the thicket in which,
by the report of Drawslot, he had harboured all night. The horsemen
spreading themselves along the side of the cover, waited until the keeper
entered, leading his bandog, a large blood-hound tied in a leam or band,
from which he takes his name.

But it befell this. A hart of the second year, which was in the same
cover with the proper object of their pursuit, chanced to be unharboured
first, and broke cover very near where the Lady Emma and her brother were
stationed. An inexperienced varlet, who was nearer to them, instantly
unloosed two tall greyhounds, who sprung after the fugitive with all the
fleetness of the north wind. Gregory, restored a little to spirits by the
enlivening scene around him, followed, encouraging the hounds with a loud
tayout,--[Tailliers-hors; in modern phrase, Tally-ho]--for which he had
the hearty curses of the huntsman, as well as of the baron, who entered
into the spirit of the chase with all the juvenile ardour of twenty. "May
the foul fiend, booted and spurred, ride down his bawling throat, with a
scythe at his girdle," quoth Albert Drawslot; "here have