"In no feat, fair gentlewoman, was I found inexpert, wherein there was
mischief implied. I shot swans, hunted cats, frightened serving-women,
chased the deer, and robbed the orchard. I say nothing of tormenting
the chaplain in various ways, for that was my duty as a good
Catholic."
"Now, as I am a gentlewoman," said Catherine, "I think these heretics
have done Catholic penance in entertaining so all-accomplished a
serving-man! And what, fair sir, might have been the unhappy event
which deprived them of an inmate altogether so estimable?"
"Truly, fair gentlewoman," answered the youth, "your real proverb says
that the longest lane will have a turning, and mine was more--it was,
in fine, a turning off."
"Good!" said the merry young maiden, "it is an apt play on the word
--and what occasion was taken for so important a catastrophe?--Nay,
start not for my learning, I do know the schools--in plain phrase, why
were you sent from service?"
The page shrugged his shoulders while he replied,--"A short tale is
soon told--and a short horse soon curried. I made the falconer's boy
taste of my switch--the falconer threatened to make me brook his
cudgel--he is a kindly clown as well as a stout, and I would rather
have been cudgelled by him than any man in Christendom to choose--but
I knew not his qualities at that time--so I threatened to make him
brook the stab, and my Lady made me brook the 'Begone;' so adieu to
the page's office and the fair Castle of Avenel--I had not travelled
far before I met my venerable parent--And so tell your tale, fair
gentlewoman, for mine is done.
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