It was told him that the King lay still at the Fivefold Vents, two days' progress from the castle, and as it chanced that a verderer's pricker came out of the wood where he had been to mark where the deer lay for to-morrow's killing, Lascelles bade this man come along with him for a guide. 'Sir, ye cannot miss the way,' the pricker said surlily. 'I have my deer to watch.' 'I will have you to guide me,' Lascelles said, 'for I little know these parts.' 'Well,' the pricker answered him, 'it is true that I have not often seen you ride a-hawking.' Whilst they went along the straight road, Lascelles, who unloosened the woodman's tongue with a great drink of sherry-sack, learned that it was said that only very unwillingly did the King lie so long at the Fivefold Vents. For on the morrow there was to be driven by, up there, a great herd of moor stags and maybe a wolf or two. The King would be home with his wife, it was reported, but the younger lords had been so importunate with him to stay and abide this gallant chase and great slaughter that, they having ridden loyally with him, he had yielded to their prayers and stayed there--twenty-four hours, it was said. 'Why, you know a great deal,' Lascelles answered. 'We who stand and wait had needs have knowledge,' the woodman said, 'for we have little else.' 'Aye, 'tis a hard service,' Lascelles said. 'Did you see the Queen's Highness o' Thursday week borrow a handkerchief of Sir Roger Pelham to lure her falcon back?' 'That did not I,' the woodman answered, 'for o' Thursday week it was a frost and the Queen rode not out.' 'Well, it was o' Saturday,' Lascelles said. 'Nor was it yet o' Saturday,' the woodman cried; 'I will swear it. For o' Saturday the Queen's Highness shot with the bow, and Sir Roger Pelham, as all men know, fell with his horse on Friday, and lies up still.' 'Then it was Sir Nicholas Rochford,' Lascelles persisted. 'Sir,' the woodman said, 'you have a very wrong tale, and patent it is that little you ride a-hunting.' 'Well, I mind my book,' Lascelles said. 'But wherefore?' 'Sir,' the woodman answered, 'it is thus: The Queen when she rides a-hawking has always behind her her page Toussaint, a little boy. And this little boy holdeth ever the separate lures for each hawk that the Queen setteth up. And the falcon or hawk or genette or tiercel having stooped, the Queen will call upon that eyass for the lure appropriated to each bird as it chances. And very carefully the Queen's Highness observeth the laws of the chase, of venery and hawking. For the which I honour her.' Lascelles said, 'Well, well!'