er beloved hawk, whose jesses were, however, grasped by one of
the foresters. Geordie of the Red Peel stood with his sword at his feet,
glaring angrily round, while Sir Patrick, pausing, could hear his son
David's voice in loud tones--

'I tell you this lady is a royal princess! Yes, she is'--as there was a
kind of scoff--'and we are bound on a mission to your King from the King
of Scots, and woe to him that touches a feather of ours.'

'That may be,' said the one who seemed chief among the English, 'but
that gives no licence to fly at the Duke's game, nor slay his foresters
for doing their duty. If we let the lady go, hawk and man must have
their necks wrung, after forest laws.'

'And I tell thee,' cried Davie, 'that this is a noble gentleman of
Scotland, and that we will fight for him to the death.'

'Let it alone, Davie,' said George. 'No scathe shall come to the lady
through me.'

'Save him, Davie! save Skywing!' screamed Jean.

'To the rescue--a Drummond,' shouted David; but his father pushed his
horse forward, just as the men in green, were in the act of stringing,
all at the same moment, their bows, as tall as themselves. They were not
so many but that his escort might have overpowered them, but only with
heavy loss, and the fact of such a fight would have been most disastrous.

'What means this, sirs?' he exclaimed, in a tone of authority, waving
back his own men; and his dignified air, as well as the banner with
which Andrew followed him, evidently took effect on the foresters, who
perhaps had not believed the young men.

'Sir Patie, my hawk!' entreated Jean. 'She did but pounce on yon unco
ugsome bird, and these bloodthirsty grasping loons would have wrung her
neck.'

'She took her knife to me,' growled the wounded man, who had risen to
his feet, and showed bleeding fingers.

'Ay, for meddling with a royal falcon,' broke in Jean. ''Tis thou, false
loon, whose craig should be raxed.'

Happily this was an unknown tongue to the foresters, and Sir Patrick
gravely silenced her.

'Whist, lady, brawls consort not with your rank. Gang back doucely to my
leddy.'

'But Skywing! he has her jesses,' said the girl, but in a lower tone, as
though rebuked.

'Sir ranger,' said Sir Patrick courteously, 'I trust you will let
the young demoiselle have her hawk. It was loosed in ignorance and
heedlessness, no doubt, but I trow it is the rule in England, as
elsewhere, that ladies of the blood royal are not bound