ht in the forest, Raymond Waffle tells us, when the King
rode away. In the opposite direction rode a pensive girl, her eyes aglow
with something deeper than had ever before illumined their translucency.

Budde Towers, according to Plabbin's "Guide to Hampshire," lay in the
heart of the forest. Built in the days of William the Conqueror, 1066,
and William Rufus, 1087, by Sir Francis Budde, it had been inhabited by
none but Buddes of each successive generation. Madcap Moll's
great-grandfather, Lord Edmund Budde,[4] added a tower here and there
when he felt inclined, while her uncle Robert Budde--known from
Bournemouth to Lyndhurst as Bounding Bob--built the celebrated picture
gallery (which can be viewed to this day by genealogical enthusiasts),
the family portraits up to then having been stored in the box-room.

Old Earl Budde, Moll's father, was as crusty an old curmudgeon as one
could find in a county. His wife (the lovely Evelyn Wormgate, a daughter
of the Duke of Bognor and Wormgate) had died while the radiant Moll was
but a puling infant. Thus it was that, knowing no hand of motherly
authority, the child perforce ran wild throughout her dazzling
adolescence.

The trees were her playmates, the twittering of the birds her music--all
the wild things of the forest loved her, specially dogs and children.
She knew every woodcutter for miles round by his Christian name. "Why,
here's Madcap Moll!" they would say, as the beautiful girl came
galloping athwart her mustang, untamed and headstrong as she herself.

This, then, was the priceless jewel which George I., spurred on by an
overmastering passion, ordered to be transferred from its rough and
homely setting to the ornate luxury of life at Court, where he
immediately bestowed upon her the title of Eighth Duchess of Wapping.

It was about a month after her arrival in London that Sir Oswald Cronk
painted his celebrated life-size portrait of her in the costly
riding-habit which was one of the many gifts of her royal lover. Sir
Oswald, with his amazing technique, has managed to convey that
suggestion of determination and resolution, one might almost say
obstinacy, lying behind the gay, devil-may-care roguishness of her
bewitching glance. Her slim, girlish figure he has portrayed with
amazing accuracy, also the beautiful negligent manner in which she
invariably carried her hunting-crop; her left hand is lovingly caressing
the head of her faithful hound, Roger, who, Raymond