"It is the clatter those d--d Flemings make with their water-mills
and fulling-mills," said Raoul; "they destroy good sport and good
company wherever they come. But were my lady willing to ride a
mile or so farther to the Red Pool, I could show you a long-
shanked fellow who would make your hawks cancelier till their
brains were giddy."
"The Red Pool!" said Rose; "thou knowest it is more than three
miles beyond the bridge, and lies up towards the hills."
"Ay, ay," said Raoul, "another Flemish freak to spoil pastime!
They are not so scarce on the Marches these Flemish wenches, that
they should fear being hawked at by Welsh haggards."
"Raoul is right, Rose," answered Eveline; "it is absurd to be
cooped uplike birds in a cage, when all around us has been so
uniformly quiet. I am determined to break out of bounds for once,
and see sport in our old fashion, without being surrounded with
armed men like prisoners of state. We will merrily to the Red
Pool, wench, and kill a heron like free maids of the Marches."
"Let me but tell my father, at least, to mount and follow us,"
said Rose--for they were now near the re-established manufacturing
houses of the stout Fleming.
"I care not if thou dost, Rose," said Eveline; "yet credit me,
girl, we will be at the Red Pool, and thus far on our way home
again, ere thy father has donned his best doublet, girded on his
two-handed sword, and accoutred his strong Flanderkin elephant of
a horse, which he judiciously names Sloth--nay, frown not, and
lose not, in justifying thy father, the time that may be better
spent in calling him out."
Rose rode to the mills accordingly, when Wilkin Flammock, at the
command of his liege mistress, readily hastened to get his steel
cap and habergeon, and ordered half-a-dozen of his kinsmen and
servants to get on horseback. Rose remained with him, to urge him
to more despatch than his methodical disposition rendered natural
to him; but in spite of all her efforts to stimulate him, the Lady
Eveline had passed the bridge more than half an hour ere her
escort was prepared to follow her.
Meanwhile, apprehensive of no evil, and riding gaily on, with the
sensation of one escaped from confinement, Eveline moved forward
on her lively jennet, as light as a lark; the plumes with which
Dame Gillian had decked her riding-bonnet dancing in the wind, and
her attendants galloping behind her, with dogs, pouches, lines,
and all other appurtenances of the royal sport of hawking. After
passing the river, the wild green-sward path which they pursued
began to wind upward among small eminences, some-times bare and
craggy, sometimes overgrown with hazel, sloethorn, and other dwarf
shrubs, and at length suddenly descending, brought them to the
verge of a mountain rivulet, that, like a lamb at play, leapt
merrily from rock to rock, seemingly uncertain which way to run.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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