of dogs. The ruddy Knight limped forth with
outstretched hand and roaring voice--

"What how, Nigel! Good welcome and all hail! I had thought that you had
given over poor friends like us, now that the King had made so much
of you. The horses, varlets, or my crutch will be across you! Hush,
Lydiard! Down, Pelamon! I can scarce hear my voice for your yelping.
Mary, a cup of wine for young Squire Loring!"

She stood framed in the doorway, tall, mystic, silent, with strange,
wistful face and deep soul shining in her dark, questioning eyes. Nigel
kissed the hand that she held out, and all his faith in woman and his
reverence came back to him as he looked at her. Her sister had slipped
behind her and her fair elfish face smiled her forgiveness of Nigel over
Mary's shoulder.

The Knight of Duplin leaned his weight upon the young man's arm and
limped his way across the great high-roofed hall to his capacious oaken
chair. "Come, come, the stool, Edith!" he cried. "As God is my help,
that girl's mind swarms with gallants as a granary with rats. Well,
Nigel, I hear strange tales of your spear-running at Tilford and of the
visit of the King. How seemed he? And my old friend Chandos--many happy
hours in the woodlands have we had together--and Manny too, he was ever
a bold and a hard rider--what news of them all?"

Nigel told to the old Knight all that had occurred, saying little of his
own success and much of his own failure, yet the eyes of the dark woman
burned the brighter as she sat at her tapestry and listened.

Sir John followed the story with a running fire of oaths, prayers,
thumps with his great fist and flourishes of his crutch. "Well, well,
lad, you could scarce expect to hold your saddle against Manny, and you
have carried yourself well. We are proud of you, Nigel, for you are our
own man, reared in the heather country. But indeed I take shame that you
are not more skilled in the mystery of the woods, seeing that I have had
the teaching of you, and that no one in broad England is my master at
the craft. I pray you to fill your cup again whilst I make use of the
little time that is left to us."

And straightway the old Knight began a long and weary lecture upon the
times of grace and when each beast and bird was seasonable, with many
anecdotes, illustrations, warnings and exceptions, drawn from his own
great experience. He spoke also of the several ranks and grades of the
chase: how the hare, hart and boar must ever