When the ladies and gentlemen went hawking the falcons used to sit upon their left wrists while they held a little chain in their hands; and there was a hood over the falcon’s heads, that their eyes might be kept clear. As soon as the party got into the fields they took the hood off the birds’ eyes, and as soon as they saw any game they loosed the little chain they held in their hands, and then the falcons flew after the game; and the ladies and gentlemen rode up after them to receive the game when the falcon had caught it. King Henry loved hunting very well, but he was too wise to hunt much. He spent most of his time in going about to see what wanted mending after the sad civil war we read of in the last chapter; and he employed the cleverest men he could find to put everything in order, and made the wisest men judges; and he got some learned men to seek out all the best laws that had ever been made in England; and, as the long wars had made the people forget the laws, he ordered the judges to go to all the towns by turns several times a year, and do justice among all the English. King Henry was very fond of learning, and gave money to learned men and to those who made verses, or as we call them poets; and by and by I dare say you will read about one that Henry was kind to, named Wace, who wrote a poem about the ancient Britons, and another about the ancient Normans. Before I can tell you of a thing that was partly good and partly bad for England in this King Henry’s reign, I must put you in mind that I have told you nothing yet about IRELAND, the sister-island of Great Britain. It was never conquered by the Romans; and the people were as ignorant as the Britons before the Romans came, with just the same sort of houses and clothes. They might have been in the same state for many years if a very good man, whom the Irish called Saint Patrick, had not gone from Britain to Ireland and taught the people to be Christians; and he and some of his companions also taught them to read; and the Irish people began to be a little more like those in other parts of the world. [Illustration: Dermot, King of Leinster, doing homage to Henry II.] Ireland was divided into several kingdoms; and, in King Henry’s time, their kings quarrelled sadly with one another. And one of them came to Henry, and begged him to go to help him against his enemies. But Henry had too much to do at home. However, he said that, if any of his barons liked to go and help the Irish king, they might. And the Irish king, whose name was Dermot, promised that if they could punish or kill his enemies, he would call the King of England Lord over Ireland, and that he and the rest of the Irish kings should be his servants.