'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 little mirror upon a cord were a good thing. But a handkerchief! Why, Sir Bookman, that a lady can only do if she will signify to all the world: "This knight is my servant and I his mistress." Those very words it signifieth—and that the better for it showeth that that lady is minded to let her hawk go, luring the gentleman to her with that favour of his.'
'Well, well,' Lascelles said, 'I am not so ignorant that I did not know that. Therefore I asked you, for it seemed a very strange thing.'
'It is a very foolish tale and very evil,' the man answered. 'For this I will swear: that the Queen's Highness—and I and her honour for it—observeth very jealously the laws of wood and moorland and chase.'
'So I have heard,' Lascelles said. 'But I see the castle. I will not take you farther, but will let you go back to the goodly deer.'