“No,” she said in a weak voice, “it is my dog, lord King. I will not have him killed because he barks.”
Fair Rosamond
A lady, accompanied by a small armed retinue, rode out of a forest glade near Woodstock, and, pausing beside the waters of the Glyme, which here came sliding in a little weir, smooth as a barrel of glass, over an artificial dam, reined in her steed, and sat gazing, in the full glow of noon, upon the scene before her.
It was a scene of perfect pastoral quiet—woodland and meadow as far as the eye could reach, broken by green hillocks and dominated by a solitary keep of stone set on a leafy height in the foreground. To the right a film of floating vapour showed where a hidden hamlet smoked. There was no other token of human life or habitation anywhere.
The lady, halting a little in advance of her party, made a preoccupied motion with her hand, whereupon there pushed forward to her a certain horseman, who dragged with him a churl roped to his saddle-bow. The knight was in bascinet and chainmail like the others, but his shield and pavon were emblazoned with arms betokening his higher rank.
“Messer de Polwarth,” said the lady, “is not this in sooth Love’s paradise?”
“Certes, madam,” he answered grimly; “it is the King’s Manor of Woodstock.”
She laughed; then, stiffening suddenly in her saddle, pointed upwards.
“Look!” she said.
A poising kite, as she spoke, had dropped to the wood-edge, and thence rose swiftly with a dove beating in its talons.