n monk, whose gluttonous eye wandered from quail to partridge,
thence onward to pastry or pie, with the spigot at the end of the orbit
of observation. Nor as it made this comprehensive survey did his
glance omit a casual inventory of the robust charms of a bouncing maid
on the opposite side of the table. Scattered amid the honest,
good-natured visages of the trusting peasants were the pinched
adventurers from Paris, the dwellers of that quarter sacred to
themselves. Yonder plump, frisky dame seemed like the lamb; the gaunt
knave by her side, the wolf.

At length the company could eat no more, although there yet remained a
void for drinking, and as the cups went circling and circling, their
laughter mingled with the distant strains of music from the great,
gorgeously lighted pavilion, where the king and his guests were
assembled to close the tourney fittingly with the celebration of the
final event--the awarding of the prize for the day.

"Can you tell me, good sir, to whom the umpires of the field have given
their judgment?" said a townsman to his country neighbor.

"Did you not hear the king of arms decide the Duke of Friedwald was the
victor?" answered the other.

"A decision of courtesy, perhaps?" insinuated the Parisian.

"Nay; two spears he broke, and overcame three adversaries during the
day. Fairly he won the award."

"I wish we might see the presentation," interrupted a maid, pertly, her
longing eyes straying to the bright lights afar.

"Presentation!" repeated the countryman. "Did we not witness the
sport? A fig for the presentation! Give me the cask and a juicy
haunch, with a lass like yourself to dance with after, and the nobles
are welcome to the sight of the prize and all the ceremony that goes
with it."

Within the king's pavilion, the spectacle alluded to, regretfully by
the girl and indifferently by the man, was at that moment being
enacted. Upon a throne of honor, the lady of the tournament, attended
by two maids, looked down on a brilliant assemblage, through which now
approached the king and the princess' betrothed. The latter seemed
somewhat thoughtful; his eye had but encountered that of the duke's
fool, whose gaze expressed a disdainful confidence the other fain would
have fathomed. But for that unfortunate meeting in the lists which had
sealed the lips of the only person who had divined the hidden danger,
the free baron would now have been master of the _plaisant's_ designs.
Ab