Finally caps with floating feathers, leggings of silk, boots of oriental red or green leather, embroidered with gold or silver, completed the splendid accoutrement of these people of the court. The rude rusticity of the Emperor's costume stood off in marked contrast with the magnificence of his courtiers. His coarse and large leather boots, furnished with iron spurs, reached up to his thighs; under his tunic he wore a broad sheep-skin coat with the fleece on the outside, and his head was covered with a cap of badger-skin. In his hand the Emperor carried a short-handled whip which he used to stir up the hunting dogs with. Thanks to his tall stature, which greatly exceeded that of any of his officers, Charles was able to detect Vortigern and Amael from afar, whereupon he cried out to the grandfather: "Eh, seigneur Breton. Come, if you please, to my side, with your grandson. I wish to ascertain whether, indeed, he is as good a horseman as my little girls claim." The ranks of the courtiers parted in order to allow a passage to Amael and his grandson, the latter of whom modestly followed his grandfather, not daring to raise his eyes lest they should fall upon the group of women that surrounded the Emperor. Charles watched Vortigern attentively, and the gracefulness with which the youth handled his horse, drew from the Emperor the remark: "Old Charles can judge at a glance of the skill of a rider. I am satisfied. But I suspect you love the hunt better than you do the mass, and a horse's saddle better than a church bench." "I do prefer the hunt to the mass," frankly responded Vortigern; "but I prefer war to the hunt." "Though your answer is not that of a good Catholic, it is the answer of a sincere lad. What do you think, my little ones?" added the Emperor, turning towards the group of huntresses. "Are you not of my mind?" "You asked the young man for his opinion, and he spoke out with sincerity. He says what he does; he will do what he says. Valor and loyalty are written upon his face," was the prompt answer that came from Hildrude. The blonde Thetralde, not daring to speak after her elder sister, grew cherry-red, and cast a look of intense jealousy, almost of rage, upon the brunette Hildrude, whose quick repartee she envied. "There is nothing left to me but to join in the praise of the young pagan's frankness, lest I get into trouble with my little girls. Come forward," and leaning over towards Amael, he pointed angrily with his whip at the crowd of courtiers who shimmered in their costly finery, and prinked in their flowing plumes. "Look at that bevy of richly caparisoned customers. Look at them well. You will presently wish to remember the figures they are now cutting," saying which, the Emperor rode off at a gallop, followed by all his court, and calling out to the courtiers as well as to the Bretons: