"
"The deer, clowns?" said a hard-visaged, swarthy-faced man, who
rode at the king's elbow. "If ye have headed it back it is as
much as your ears are worth."
"It passed by the blighted beech there," said Alleyne, pointing,
"and the hounds were hard at its heels."
"It is well," cried Edward, still speaking in French: for, though
he could understand English, he had never learned to express
himself in so barbarous and unpolished a tongue. "By my faith,
sirs," he continued, half turning in his saddle to address his
escort, "unless my woodcraft is sadly at fault, it is a stag of
six tines and the finest that we have roused this journey. A
golden St. Hubert to the man who is the first to sound the mort."
He shook his bridle as he spoke, and thundered away, his knights
lying low upon their horses and galloping as hard as whip and
spur would drive them, in the hope of winning the king's prize.
Away they drove down the long green glade--bay horses, black and
gray, riders clad in every shade of velvet, fur, or silk, with
glint of brazen horn and flash of knife and spear.
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