"
"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 passing 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."
"Done with you, Bishop!" cried the King, his brow dark with
vexation. "By the rood! if you were as learned in the fathers as
you are in hawks you would win to the throne of Saint Peter! Cast
off your peregrine and make your boasting good."
Smaller than the royal gerfalcon, the Bishop's bird was none the
less a swift and beautiful creature. From her perch upon his
wrist she had watched with fierce, keen eyes the birds in the
heaven, mantling herself from time to time in her eagerness.
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