rse-strings for him. Every dog his day. Adieu, Messires, adieu,
ancestor;" and he sauntered off whistling to his hawk and caressing it.

His reverence looked ruefully after him.

"Cretensis incidit in Cretensem," said he sorrowfully. "I thought I
had him safe for a dozen masses. Yet I blame him not, but that young
ne'er-do-weel which did trundle his ancestor's skull at us: for who
could venerate his great-great-grandsire and play football with his
head? Well it behoves us to be better Christians than he is." So they
gathered the bones reverently, and the cure locked them up, and forbade
the workmen, who now entered the church, to close up the pillar, till he
should recover by threats of the Church's wrath every atom of my lord.
And he showed Gerard a famous shrine in the church. Before it were the
usual gifts of tapers, etc. There was also a wax image of a falcon, most
curiously moulded and coloured to the life, eyes and all. Gerard's eye
fell at once on this, and he expressed the liveliest admiration. The
cure assented. Then Gerard asked, "Could the saint have loved hawking?"

The cure laughed at his simplicity. "Nay, 'tis but a statuary hawk. When
they have a bird of gentle breed they cannot train, they make his image,
and send it to this shrine with a present, and pray the saint to work
upon the stubborn mind of the original, and make it ductile as wax: that
is the notion, and methinks a reasonable one, too."

Gerard assented. "But alack, reverend sir, were I a saint, methinks I
should side with the innocent dove, rather than with the cruel hawk that
rends her."

"By St. Denys you are right," said the cure. "But, que voulez-vous?
the saints are debonair, and have been flesh themselves, and know man's
frailty and absurdity. 'Tis the Bishop of Avignon sent this one."

"What! do bishops hawk in this country?"

"One and all. Every noble person hawks, and lives with hawk on wrist.
Why, my lord abbot hard by, and his lordship that has just parted from
us, had a two years' feud as to where they should put their hawks down
on that very altar there. Each claimed the right hand of the altar for
his bird."

"What desecration!"

"Nay! nay! thou knowest we make them doff both glove and hawk to take
the blessed eucharist. Their jewelled gloves will they give to a servant
or simple Christian to hold: but their beloved hawks they will put down
on no place less than the altar."

Gerard inquired how the battle of the hawks