uide me,' Lascelles said, 'for I little know these
parts.'

'Well,' the pricker answered him, 'it is true that I have not often seen
you ride a-hawking.'

Whilst they went along the straight road, Lascelles, who unloosened the
woodman's tongue with a great drink of sherry-sack, learned that it was
said that only very unwillingly did the King lie so long at the Fivefold
Vents. For on the morrow there was to be driven by, up there, a great
herd of moor stags and maybe a wolf or two. The King would be home with
his wife, it was reported, but the younger lords had been so importunate
with him to stay and abide this gallant chase and great slaughter that,
they having ridden loyally with him, he had yielded to their prayers and
stayed there--twenty-four hours, it was said.

'Why, you know a great deal,' Lascelles answered.

'We who stand and wait had needs have knowledge,' the woodman said, 'for
we have little else.'

'Aye, 'tis a hard service,' Lascelles said. 'Did you see the Queen's
Highness o' Thursday week borrow a handkerchief of Sir Roger Pelham to
lure her falcon back?'

'That did not I,' the woodman answered, 'for o' Thursday week it was a
frost and the Queen rode not out.'

'Well, it was o' Saturday,' Lascelles said.

'Nor was it yet o' Saturday,' the woodman cried; 'I will swear it. For
o' Saturday the Queen's Highness shot with the bow, and Sir Roger
Pelham, as all men know, fell with his horse on Friday, and lies up
still.'

'Then it was Sir Nicholas Rochford,' Lascelles persisted.

'Sir,' the woodman said, 'you have a very wrong tale, and patent it is
that little you ride a-hunting.'

'Well, I mind my book,' Lascelles said. 'But wherefore?'

'Sir,' the woodman answered, 'it is thus: The Queen when she rides
a-hawking has always behind her her page Toussaint, a little boy. And
this little boy holdeth ever the separate lures for each hawk that the
Queen setteth up. And the falcon or hawk or genette or tiercel having
stooped, the Queen will call upon that eyass for the lure appropriated
to each bird as it chances. And very carefully the Queen's Highness
observeth the laws of the chase, of venery and hawking. For the which I
honour her.'

Lascelles said, 'Well, well!'

'As for the borrowing of a handkerchief,' the woodman pursued, 'that is
a very idle tale. For, let me tell you, a lady might borrow a jewelled
feather or a scarlet pouch or what not that is bright and shall take a
bird's eye--a litt