The decisions were hard to reconcile. Thus, in Edward the Third's time, it was held that if a man fall to his death from his horse against the trunk of a tree, the horse is forfeit, but not the tree. But in the same reign a distinction was drawn. One William Daventry, a servant to John Blaburgh, engaged in watering a horse, was grievously hurt. He was carried to his master's house "_apud Fleet Street in suburbio London_", and there at even he died. At first the horse was adjudged a deodand, but Blaburgh got the inquisition quashed on the ground that the horse had not thrown his rider. Again, if a lad under fourteen fell from a cart and was killed, there was no deodand: as some opined, because the masses might be dispensed with, in the case of one presumed sinless from his tender age, and the proper end of deodands was to procure masses; but others urged it was "because he was not of discretion to look to himself." The further question--what possible difference this could make--was not raised; for even a mediæval lawyer's speculation must stop somewhere. But how if the slayer were a lad? A Cornish case, _temp._ 1302, supplies an answer. Jack of Burton, a boy of twelve, had a mind to draw the bow. He rigged up a target in a house, and shot thereat from the outside. One arrow missed the mark, and, glancing off a hook, transfixed a woman called Rose. Rose died forthwith, and Jack fled in horror. It was held that _le Hoke_ was a deodand, but that the boy, on account of his age, was no whit to blame, and (with a touch of kindliness) a proclamation was made far and wide that he might return in safety. In this connection one recalls the awkward misadventure of Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury, in the reign of James I., who, being out a-hunting, killed, by pure accident, Peter Hawkins, his keeper. He had many enemies, and all sorts of ecclesiastical and temporal penalties were threatened: at least, it was said, let all his goods be confiscate. But the King turned a deaf ear to these suggestions: he comforted the unlucky prelate with kindly words, and a full pardon, dated 26th September 1621, removed all possible danger from his reverend person. If a man met his death afloat, there was deodand or no deodand as the water was fresh or salt, for these rules had no force on the high seas or in tidal rivers: because, said some, "there were so many deaths at sea." "Nay," said others, "how forfeit the ocean?" "But at least," it was replied, "one could take the ship"----but here again speculation must stop. Although deodands first went to the Crown, and were properly applied to pious or charitable uses, yet they were often granted to lords of manors: so often, indeed, that one of the few references to them in English literature--a couplet in Samuel Butler's _Hudibras_--treats this as the general rule. "For love should, like a deodand, Still fall to the owner of the land."