"I am deeply grieved," replied the Secretary. "Indeed, I knew not of the bird nor whence he came: nor thought of it, in truth. A feather of his wing should not have come to harm had I been aware that he had ever pleased your eye. I am all unskilled in these out-door sports, and have scarce worn out the complexion of my school at Antwerp, where worldly pastimes were a forbidden thought. A poor scholar of the cloister might go free of blame if, in this sunny and gallant world, the transport of a noble game should rob him of his circumspection. I thought of naught but the glorious circling of the hawk and his swift and imperious assault. I crave your pardon for my inconsiderate error." "You speak more like a practised cavalier than a scholar of the cloister," said the sister of the Proprietary; "thou hast a cavalier's love of the sport, Albert." "It doth not beseem me, madam," was the Secretary's reply, "to affect a pastime which belongs neither to my rank nor humble means; but, in sadness, dear lady, I do love hawk, and hound, and steed. And when in my sequestered study--where, being, as I thought, destined to the service of the altar, I read mostly of holy men and holy things, little dreaming that I should ever see the world--it sometimes chanced, in my stray reading, I fell upon a lay wherein deeds of chivalry were told; and then I was conscious of a wish, I am now almost ashamed to confess, that fortune might some day bring me better acquainted with that world to which such deeds belonged. Oh, blessed chance! it hath befallen now:----that is,--I mean to say," continued the Secretary, checking himself, as his flashing eye fell to the floor, and a blush flitted across his brow--"it hath pleased Heaven to give me a kind master in my good Lord, who doth not deny me to look on when these sports are afield." "And if we did strike down the heron, Blanche Warden," said Benedict Leonard, saucily accosting the maiden, and showing the hawk that was bound to his wrist--"what is a heron good for, but to be brought down? Herons were made for hawks--yes, and for the hawks of the Proprietary above all others; for I have heard say that every heron on the Chesapeake, within my father's boundary, is his own bird: so Derrick has said a hundred times. And there's my uncle Talbot, who flies a hawk better than any other in the province--I don't care if Derrick hears me--and has the best mews,--he says that these fire-arms have broken up hawking in the old country; and he told me I must not let it fall through when I come to the province; for my father, he thinks, doesn't care much for it. I promise you in my time we shall have hawking enough--chide as you like, Mistress Blanche. It was partly for me that my uncle Talbot sent us this cast of birds. Look at that laneret, Blanche,--look at her! Isn't that a bird? Talk to me of a goshawk after that!"