the hawk, 'and seemeth well re-claimed, though, knowing me not, he is by nature shy.' 

 'I hope well he may sustain the reputation accorded him by those from whom I had him,' said the earl, 'and prove his worth by deeds when we reach the waters. He comes straight from Denmark, and is accounted equal to any King Sweyn at present hath in his mews. He will bind a mallard with his beak, nor needeth he any lure save the voice of the falconer. None exceed the Danes for skill in training a hawk.' 

 The Earl of Hereford, who had been riding ahead with his countess, fell back and reined his horse beside his sister's palfrey, that he might examine and criticise this much-extolled bird. But his criticism also took the form of admiration. 

 'If he performs as well as he looks,' quoth he, 'I would think him cheap at a hundred marks.' 

 When they reached the marshy ground to north-west the castle, at which they had been aiming, the spaniels soon put up a heronshaw, and Emma, who had no mean skill at falconry, slipped off the hood from the Danish hawk, and cast him deftly from her little fist into the air at what was called the jette serré, that is to say, as quickly after the quarry had taken flight as possible. 

 The heron soared into the air on his strong wings, with his slender legs stretched straight behind him, till he was almost lost in the clouds, but the tassel-gentle pursued him swiftly, scaling the air by small circles ascending higher and higher like the steps of a spiral staircase. 

 Emma clapped her hands in delight. 

 'By the mass! a magnificent mount!' exclaimed Hereford, and his praise was echoed amongst the ladies and gentlemen round, nor did the falconers refuse their meed of honour to the foreign bird, jealous though they might be for the fame of their own particular pets, whom they had tended since they took them from the eyrie at the stage of eyass-down, and lured and re-claimed with daily care and patient skill. 

 'The tassel-gentle hath the uppermost,' cried Emma, after a few seconds of eager watching. 

 'Thine eyes are as keen as the hawk's!' cried De Guader. 'At that height I could not tell one from the other.' 

 But Emma saw truly. In a moment more the tassel-gentle stooped upon his quarry, and the struggling birds came tumbling from the sky together, leaving a long 

 Prev. P 29/228 next