—— Ours is the skie,

Where at what fowl we please our hawk shall flie.

RANDOLPH.

One bright September morning, old Raoul was busy in the mews where he kept his hawks, grumbling all the while to himself as he surveyed the condition of each bird, and blaming alternately the carelessness of the under-falconer, and the situation of the building, and the weather, and the wind, and all things around him, for the dilapidation which time and disease had made in the neglected hawking establishment of the Garde Doloureuse. While in these unpleasing meditations, he was surprised by the voice of his beloved Dame Gillian, who seldom was an early riser, and yet more rarely visited him when he was in his sphere of peculiar authority. “Raoul, Raoul! where art thou, man?— Ever to seek for, when thou canst make aught of advantage for thyself or me!”

“And what want’st thou, dame?” said Raoul, “what means thy screaming worse than the seagull before wet weather? A murrain on thy voice! it is enough to fray every hawk from the perch.”

“Hawk!” answered Dame Gillian; “it is time to be looking for hawks, when here is a cast of the bravest falcons come hither for sale, that ever flew by lake, brook, or meadow!”

“Kites! like her that brings the news,” said Raoul.

“No, nor kestrils like him that hears it,” replied Gillian; “but brave jerfalcons, with large nares, strongly armed, and beaks short and something bluish —”

“Pshaw, with thy jargon!— Where came they from?” said Raoul, interested in the tidings, but unwilling to give his wife the satisfaction of seeing that he was so.

“From the Isle of Man,” replied Gillian.

“They must be good, then, though it was a woman brought tidings of them,” said Raoul, smiling grimly at his own wit; then, leaving the mews, he demanded to know where this famous falcon-merchant was to be met withal.

“Why, between the barriers and the inner gate,” replied Gillian, “where other men are admitted that have wares to utter — Where should he be?”

“And who let him in?” demanded the suspicious Raoul.

“Why, Master Steward, thou owl!” said Gillian; “he came but now to my chamber, and sent me hither to call you.”

“Oh, the steward — the steward — I might have guessed as much. And he came to thy chamber, doubtless, because he could not have as easily come hither to me himself.— Was it not so, sweetheart?”

“I do not know why he chose to come to me rather than to you, Raoul,” said Gillian; “and if I did know, perhaps I would not tell you. Go to — miss your bargain, or make your bargain, I care not which — the man will not wait for you — he has good proffers from the Seneschal of Malpas, and the Welsh Lord of Dinevawr.”