trespass to kill deer upon the land
of another?"

"He did it not," cried Francis. "'Twas I. What is the penalty? My father,
Lord William Stafford, will requite the loss; but permit me, I pray, to
take trophy of my skill."

"Thou?" The foresters who had surrounded the youth looked with amusement
at the girl, and then broke into loud guffaws.

"Heed her not, masters. Could a maiden do such a thing? She knows not of
what she speaks."

"Nay; give heed to me, I beseech you," cried Francis, but the lad
interrupted her.

"Permit it to be as I have said, mistress. If there be penalty, 'twere
meeter for me to suffer it than for thee. Withdraw, I beseech you."

"The boy is right," said Hugh Greville. "It is no place for thee,
Francis. I will speak to thy father concerning the matter. Meantime we
can serve no good purpose here. Come!"

"No, no," cried the girl trying vainly to make the foresters attend her.
"'Twas I who killed the deer. It was not this lad."

But the verderers paying no further attention to her words busied
themselves about the cutting up of the deer. With a burst of angry tears
Francis reluctantly permitted the tutor to lead her away.

-----
[A] While fools avoid one error they fall into the opposite
one.

CHAPTER II

THE SOLDIER GUEST

Passing out of the park, Francis and her tutor came into the forest
proper. One vast sea of woods rolled, a flood of green, over hill and
valley onward and ever on till lost among the moors. Presently they
ascended Stoney Cross Hill and there opened out one long view. On the
northeast rose the hills of Winchester but the city was hidden in their
valley. To the east lay Southampton by the waterside; and to the north,
gleamed the green Wiltshire downs lit up by the sunlight.

Among the beeches but a short distance away lay Castle Malwood with its
single trench and Forest lodge, where tradition says that William Rufus
feasted before his death, and down in the valley was the spot where he is
said to have fallen. The road now became a long avenue of trees--beeches
with their smooth trunks, oaks growing in groups, with here and there
long lawns stretching far away into distant woods. All at once the manor
burst upon the view.

Situated in the midst of a noble park which crowned the summit of one of
the hills that fringed the borders of the weald, Stafford Hall, in this
year of grace 1586, the twenty-eighth of Elizabeth, was graceful and
stately in t