There Was A Hangman Over At Melun,
And, I Doubt Not, A Fine Tall Gibbet Hard By The Town Gate, Where
Jacques Might See His Fellows Dangle Against The Sky As He Went To
Market.
And then, if he lived near to a cover, there would be the more
hares and rabbits to eat out his harvest, and the more hunters to
trample it down.
My lord has a new horn from England. He has laid
out seven francs in decorating it with silver and gold, and fitting
it with a silken leash to hang about his shoulder. The hounds have
been on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint Mesmer, or Saint Hubert
in the Ardennes, or some other holy intercessor who has made a
speciality of the health of hunting-dogs. In the grey dawn the
game was turned and the branch broken by our best piqueur. A rare
day's hunting lies before us. Wind a jolly flourish, sound the
bien-aller with all your lungs. Jacques must stand by, hat in
hand, while the quarry and hound and huntsman sweep across his
field, and a year's sparing and labouring is as though it had not
been. If he can see the ruin with a good enough grace, who knows
but he may fall in favour with my lord; who knows but his son may
become the last and least among the servants at his lordship's
kennel - one of the two poor varlets who get no wages and sleep at
night among the hounds?
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