n affairs of Church and State, for in all ages there is
no such leveler as sport. Suddenly, however, the Prince, whose keen
eyes had swept from time to time over the great blue heaven, uttered a
peculiar call and reined up his palfrey, pointing at the same time into
the air.

"A heron!" he cried. "A heron on passage!"

To gain the full sport of hawking a heron must not be put up from its
feeding-ground, where it is heavy with its meal, and has no time to get
its pace on before it is pounced upon by the more active hawk, but
it must be aloft, traveling from point to point, probably from the
fish-stream to the heronry. Thus to catch the bird on passage was the
prelude of all good sport. The object to which the Prince had pointed
was but a black dot in the southern sky, but his strained eyes had
not deceived him, and both Bishop and King agreed that it was indeed a
heron, which grew larger every instant as it flew in their direction.

"Whistle him off, sire! Whistle off the gerfalcon!" cried the Bishop.

"Nay, nay, he is overfar. She would fly at check."

"Now, sire, now!" cried the Prince, as the great bird with the breeze
behind him came sweeping down the sky.

The King gave the shrill whistle, and the well-trained hawk raked out to
the right and to the left to make sure which quarry she was to follow.
Then, spying the heron, she shot up in a swift ascending curve to meet
him.

"Well flown, Margot! Good bird!" cried the King, clapping his hands
to encourage the hawk, while the falconers broke into the shrill whoop
peculiar to the sport.

Going on her curve, the hawk would soon have crossed the path of the
heron; but the latter, seeing the danger in his front and confident in
his own great strength of wing and lightness of body, proceeded to mount
higher in the air, flying in such small rings that to the spectators it
almost seemed as if the bird was going perpendicularly upward.

"He takes the air!" cried the King. "But strong as he flies, he cannot
out fly Margot. Bishop, I lay you ten gold pieces to one that the heron
is mine."

"I cover your wager, sire," said the Bishop. "I may not take gold so
won, and yet I warrant that there is an altar-cloth somewhere in need of
repairs."

"You have good store of altar-cloths, Bishop, if all the gold I have
seen you win at tables goes to the mending of them," said the King. "Ah!
by the rood, rascal, rascal! See how she flies at check!"

The quick eyes of the Bishop