Part 11 (2/2)

you broke your lance that pa.s.sage. But the question I debated was this: How is it that since the Crusades have manifestly been fought in G.o.d's quarrel, we Christians have had so little comfort or support in fighting them. After all our efforts and the loss of more men than could be counted, we are at last driven from the country, and even the military orders which were formed only for that one purpose can scarce hold a footing in the islands of the Greek sea. There is not one seaport nor one fortress in Palestine over which the flag of the Cross still waves.

Where then was our ally?”

”Nay, sire, you open a great debate which extends far beyond this question of the Holy Land, though that may indeed be chosen as a fair example. It is the question of all sin, of all suffering, of all injustice--why it should pa.s.s without the rain of fire and the lightnings of Sinai. The wisdom of G.o.d is beyond our understanding.”

The King shrugged his shoulders. ”This is an easy answer, my Lord Bishop. You are a prince of the Church. It would fare ill with an earthly prince who could give no better answer to the affairs which concerned his realm.”

”There are other considerations which might be urged, most gracious sire. It is true that the Crusades were a holy enterprise which might well expect the immediate blessing of G.o.d; but the Crusaders--is it certain that they deserved such a blessing? Have I not heard that their camp was the most dissolute ever seen?”

”Camps are camps all the world over, and you cannot in a moment change a bowman into a saint. But the holy Louis was a crusader after your own heart. Yet his men perished at Mansurah and he himself at Tunis.”

”Bethink you also that this world is but the antechamber of the next,”

said the prelate. ”By suffering and tribulation the soul is cleansed, and the true victor may be he who by the patient endurance of misfortune merits the happiness to come.”

”If that be the true meaning of the Church's blessing, then I hope that it will be long before it rests upon our banners in France,” said the King. ”But methinks that when one is out with a brave horse and a good hawk one might find some other subject than theology. Back to the birds, Bishop, or Raoul the falconer will come to interrupt thee in thy cathedral.”

Straightway the conversation came back to the mystery of the woods and the mystery of the rivers, to the dark-eyed hawks and the yellow-eyed, to hawks of the lure and hawks of the fist. The Bishop was as steeped in the lore of falconry as the King, and the others smiled as the two wrangled hard over disputed and technical questions: if an eyas trained in the mews can ever emulate the pa.s.sage hawk taken wild, or how long the young hawks should be placed at hack, and how long weathered before they are fully reclaimed.

Monarch and prelate were still deep in this learned discussion, the Bishop speaking with a freedom and a.s.surance which he would never have dared to use in affairs of Church and State, for in all ages there is no such leveler as sport. Suddenly, however, the Prince, whose keen eyes had swept from time to time over the great blue heaven, uttered a peculiar call and reined up his palfrey, pointing at the same time into the air.

”A heron!” he cried. ”A heron on pa.s.sage!”

To gain the full sport of hawking a heron must not be put up from its feeding-ground, where it is heavy with its meal, and has no time to get its pace on before it is pounced upon by the more active hawk, but it must be aloft, traveling from point to point, probably from the fish-stream to the heronry. Thus to catch the bird on pa.s.sage was the prelude of all good sport. The object to which the Prince had pointed was but a black dot in the southern sky, but his strained eyes had not deceived him, and both Bishop and King agreed that it was indeed a heron, which grew larger every instant as it flew in their direction.

”Whistle him off, sire! Whistle off the gerfalcon!” cried the Bishop.

”Nay, nay, he is overfar. She would fly at check.”

”Now, sire, now!” cried the Prince, as the great bird with the breeze behind him came sweeping down the sky.

The King gave the shrill whistle, and the well-trained hawk raked out to the right and to the left to make sure which quarry she was to follow.

Then, spying the heron, she shot up in a swift ascending curve to meet him.

”Well flown, Margot! Good bird!” cried the King, clapping his hands to encourage the hawk, while the falconers broke into the shrill whoop peculiar to the sport.

Going on her curve, the hawk would soon have crossed the path of the heron; but the latter, seeing the danger in his front and confident in his own great strength of wing and lightness of body, proceeded to mount higher in the air, flying in such small rings that to the spectators it almost seemed as if the bird was going perpendicularly upward.

”He takes the air!” cried the King. ”But strong as he flies, he cannot out fly Margot. Bishop, I lay you ten gold pieces to one that the heron is mine.”

”I cover your wager, sire,” said the Bishop. ”I may not take gold so won, and yet I warrant that there is an altar-cloth somewhere in need of repairs.”

”You have good store of altar-cloths, Bishop, if all the gold I have seen you win at tables goes to the mending of them,” said the King. ”Ah!

by the rood, rascal, rascal! See how she flies at check!”

The quick eyes of the Bishop had perceived a drift of rooks when on their evening flight to the rookery were pa.s.sing along the very line which divided the hawk from the heron. A rook is a hard temptation for a hawk to resist. In an instant the inconstant bird had forgotten all about the great heron above her and was circling over the rooks, flying westward with them as she singled out the plumpest for her stoop.

”There is yet time, sire! Shall I cast off her mate?” cried the falconer.

”Or shall I show you, sire, how a peregrine may win where a gerfalcon fails?” said the Bishop. ”Ten golden pieces to one upon my bird.”

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