The two voices joined in swooping circles of sound, and a heron rose out of a red osier bed below them, circling as though he kept time to the outcry. Swallow quivered and swished his glorious tail. They stopped together on the same note. A hoarse shout answered them across the bare woods. 'That's old Hobden,' said Una. 'Small blame to him. It is in his blood,' said Puck. 'Did your beaters cry so, Sir Richard?' 'My faith, they forgot all else. (Steady, Swallow, steady!) They forgot where the King and his people waited to shoot. They followed the deer to the very edge of the open till the first flight of wild arrows from the stands flew fair over them. 'I cried, "'Ware shot! 'Ware shot!" and a knot of young knights new from Normandy, that had strayed away from the Grand Stand, turned about, and in mere sport loosed off at our line shouting: "'Ware Senlac arrows! 'Ware Senlac arrows!" A jest, I grant you, but too sharp. One of our beaters answered in Saxon: "'Ware New Forest arrows! 'Ware Red William's arrow!" so I judged it time to end the jests, and when the boys saw my old mail gown (for, to shoot with strangers _I_ count the same as war), they ceased shooting. So _that_ was smoothed over, and we gave our beaters ale to wash down their anger. They were excusable! We--they had sweated to show our guests good sport, and our reward was a flight of hunting-arrows which no man loves, and worse, a churl's jibe over hard-fought, fair-lost Hastings fight. So, before the next beat, Hugh and I assembled and called the beaters over by name, to steady them. The greater part we knew, but among the Netherfield men I saw an old, old man, in the dress of a pilgrim. 'The Clerk of Netherfield said he was well known by repute for twenty years as a witless man that journeyed without rest to all the shrines of England. The old man sits, Saxon fashion, head between fists. We Normans rest our chin on our left palm. '"Who answers for him?" said I. "If he fails in his duty, who will pay his fine?" '"Who will pay my fine?" the pilgrim said. "I have asked that of all the Saints in England these forty years, less three months and nine days! They have not answered!" When he lifted his thin face I saw he was one-eyed, and frail as a rushlight. '"Nay but, Father," I said, "to whom hast thou commended thyself?" He shook his head, so I spoke in Saxon: "Whose man art thou?" '"I think I have a writing from Rahere, the King's Jester," said he after a while. "I am, as I suppose, Rahere's man." 'He pulled a writing from his scrip, and Hugh coming up, read it. 'It set out that the pilgrim was Rahere's man, and that Rahere was the King's Jester. There was Latin writ at the back. '"What a plague conjuration's here?" said Hugh, turning it over. "_Pum-quum-sum oc-occ._ Magic?"