prize they sought. The hunt
separated, some going this way and some that. And in the evening all
met again in Amberley. And some had game to show and some had none. And
one had seen the hart.

When he said so a cry went up from the company, and they pressed round
to hear his tale, and it was a strange one.

"For," said he, "where Great Down clothes itself with the North Wood I
saw a flash against the dark of the trees, and out of them bounded the
very hart, taller than any hart I ever dreamed of, and, as the tale has
told, as pure as snow; and the crockets spring from its crowns like
rays from a summer cloud. I could not count them, but its points are
more than twelve. When it saw me it stood motionless, and trembling
with joy I fitted my arrow to the string; but even as I did so out of
the trees ran another creature, as strange as the white hart. It was
none other than the Rusty Knight; I knew him by his battered vizard,
which was closed. But for the rest he wore now, not rust, but rags--a
tattered jerkin in place of battered mail. Yet in his hands was a bow
which among weapons could only be matched by his sword. He took his
stand beside the snow-white hart, and cried in that angry voice we have
all heard, These crowns grow only to the glory of the Proud Rosalind,
the most peerless daughter of Sussex, and no woman but she shall ever
boast of them!' And before I could move or answer for surprise, he had
set his arrow to his bow, and drawn the string back to his shoulder,
and let fly. It was well I did not start aside, or it might have hit
me; for I never saw an arrow fly so wild of its mark. But the whole
circumstance amazed me too much for quick action, and before I could
come up and chastise this unskillful archer, or even aim at the prize
which stood beside him, he and the hart had plunged through the wood
again, the man running swiftfoot as the beast; and when I followed I
could not find them, and unhappily my dogs were astray."

The strange tale stung the tempers of all listeners, both men and women.

"Well, now," laughed Maudlin, "it has at least been seen that the hart
is the whitest of harts."

"But it has not yet been seen," fumed Clarimond, "that this Rosalind is
the most beautiful of women."

"Nor have we seen," said the knight who told the tale, "who it is that
insults our manhood with valiant words and no deeds to prove them. Yet
with such a sword and such a bow a man might prove anything."

The ne