le 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.'

'Pray God they be not wandered fore,' the woodman said. 'You could have
found this way without me.'

* * * * *

There was but one road into the castle, and that from the south, up a
steep green bank. Up the roadway Lascelles must ride his horse past four
men that bore a litter made of two pikes wattled with green boughs and
covered with a horse-cloth. As Lascelles passed by the very head of it,
the man that lay there sprang off it to his feet, and cried out--

'I be the Queen's cousin and servant. I brought her to the Court.'
Lascelles' horse sprang sideways, a great bound up the bank. He galloped
ten paces ahead before the rider could stay him and turn round. The man,
all rags and with a black face, had fallen into the dust of the road,
and still cried out outrageously. The bearers set down the litter, wiped
their brows, and then, falling all four upon Culpepper, made to carry
him by his legs and arms, for they were weary of laying him upon the
litter from which incessantly he sprang.

But before them upon his horse was Lascelles and impeded their way.
Culpepper drew in and pushed out his legs and arms, so that they all
four staggered, and--

'For God's sake, master,' one of them grunted out, 'stand aside that we
may pass. We have toil enow in bearing him.'

'Why, set the poor gentleman down upon the litter,' Lascelles said, 'and
let us talk a little.'

The men set Culpepper on the horse-cloth, and one of them knelt down to
hold him there.

'If you will lend us your horse to lay him across, we may come more
easily up,' one said. In these days the positi