Near to where Timothy stood, an old gentleman with a pointed white beard and a russet-coloured doublet rode on a very large chestnut horse. He carried a merlin hawk perched on his fist, but he seemed to take less interest in the sport than did his younger companions. Timothy had seen him many times before, both in Plymouth and at Modbury Park, and knew him to be the great Baron Champernoun, the lord of the manor of Modbury, a noted soldier and courtier. A very beautiful lady rode by his side, wearing a sombre black gown and a wide black hat with black feathers. She looked strangely out of place among her gaily-dressed friends, and Timothy wondered why she should wear this habit of gloom, until he saw her face, when he at once recognized her as the Lady Elisabeth Oglander, and knew that her reason for shunning bright colours in her apparel was the death of her most noble husband, the honourable Edmund Oglander, who had fallen in battle in the Netherlands while fighting against the Spaniards. She drew rein, and the master falconer approached her with his square frame round his waist, on which were perched some half-dozen hawks with their hoods and bells and their scarlet tufts. The lady leaned over on her saddle and took a hawk from the falconer's hand. The bird flapped its wings in great commotion until it was fairly perched on the fingers that held it. Then the Lady Elizabeth, holding her hand aloft, rode off across the field, followed presently by the rest of the hawking party, while Tim Trollope watched them disappear round a corner of the wood. As he turned to continue his way he came face to face with a boy of about his own age, who was carrying some dead partridges--spoils of the chase. "Helloh, Will!" cried Timothy, recognizing the lad. "I had thought you were at work on Modbury farm. Hast had a rise in the world that you are out here at the heels of the gentlefolks?" "A rise, do you call it?" returned Will. "That is as it may be. For my own part I do call it but a change of labour. I get no more pay for't, I promise you; and 'tis a vast deal harder work than the herding of cattle or the tending of sheep. I like it not, Tim; and 'tis certain I shall not stand it much longer." He dropped his burden on the grass at his feet and gazed idly about him with a dreamy look in his eyes. Presently he added, "I am for the sea, if peradventure I can get a ship to take me. I'd leave to-morrow an I could get someone to take my place." Timothy glanced quickly at his young friend. "I'll take it!" he cried eagerly. "I'll take your place, and gladly. For I have been wanting these many months past to go to work, and, since my father will not suffer me to go to sea, why, there is nothing I'd like better than to be in the service of my Lord Champernoun."