----"a clerk he toke That taught the child upon the boke Bothe to synge and to rede, And after he taught him other dede. Afterwards to serve in halle, Both to grete and to small. Before the king meat to kerve Hye and low feyre to serve. Both of houndis and hawkis game, After he taught him all and same, In se, in field, and eke in river, In wood to chase the wild deer; And in the field to ride a steed, That all men had joy of his deed." [Sidenote: Hunting and Hawking.] The mystery of rivers and the mystery of woods were important parts of knightly education. The mystery of woods was hunting; the mystery of rivers was not fishing, but hawking, an expression which requires a few words of explanation. In hawking, the pursuit of water-fowls afforded most diversion. Chaucer says that he could "ryde on hawking by the river, With grey gos hawk on hand." The favourite bird of chase was the heron, whose peculiar flight is not horizontal, like that of field birds, but perpendicular. It is wont to rise to a great height on finding itself the object of pursuit, while its enemy, using equal efforts to out-tower it, at length gains the advantage, swoops upon the heron with prodigious force, and strikes it to the ground. The amusement of hawking, therefore, could be viewed without the spectators moving far from the river's side where the game was sprung; and from that circumstance it was called the mystery of rivers.[50] But I shall attempt no further to describe in separate portions the subjects of knightly education, and to fill up the sketches of the old romances; for those sketches, though correct, present no complete outline, and the military exercises are altogether omitted. We had better trace the cavalier, through the gradations of his course, in the castle of his lord. * * * * *