"Then you'll doubtless be making her a great entertainment there, Proud Rosalind," scoffed the washers.
"I entertain none but the kings of the earth there," said Rosalind. And she made to walk on.
"Why then," mocked they, "you'd best seek one out to hunt the white hart in your name this autumn, and crown you queen over young Maudlin, Proud Rosalind."
And Rosalind stopped and looked at them, longing to say, "The white hart? What do you mean?" Yet for all her longing to know, she could not bring herself to ask anything of them. But as though her thoughts had taken voice of themselves, she heard the sharp questions uttered aloud, "What white hart, chatterers? Of what hunt are you talking?" And there in mid-stream stood Harding in his boat, keeping it steady with the great pole of the oar.
"Why, Red Boatman," said they, "did you not know that the Queen of Bramber was coming to make merry at Amberley?"
"Ay," said Harding.
"And that our proud lady Rosalind, having, it seems, found a grander castle to live in, has given hers up to young Maudlin?"
Harding glanced to and from the scornful tawny girl and said, "Well?"
"Well, Red Boatman! On Midsummer Eve the Queen comes with her court, and on Midsummer Day there will be a great tourney to open the revels that will last, so they say, all through summer. But the end of it all is to be a great chase, for a white hart of twelve points has been seen on the hills, and the Queen will hunt it in autumn till some lucky lord kneels at her feet with its antlers; and him, they say, she'll marry."
Then Harding once more looked at Rosalind over the water, and she flung back a look at him, and each was surprised to see dismay on the other's brow. And Harding thought, "Is she angry because SHE is not the Queen of the chase?" And Rosalind, "Would HE be the lord who kneels to Queen Maudlin?" But neither knew that the trouble in each was really because their precious secret was now public, and the white hart endangered. And Rosalind's thought was, "It shall be no Queen's quarry!" And Harding's, "It shall be no man's but mine!" Then Harding plied his way to the ferry, and Rosalind went hers to none knew where; though some had tried vainly to track her.