But my Lady's favour stood between your skin and many a
jerking--Lord send you may be the better for her protection in such
matters!"
"I am least grateful for it, Adam! and I am glad you put me in mind
of it."
"Well, but the news, my young master," said Woodcock, "spell me the
tidings--what are we to fly at next?--what did the Regent say to you?"
"Nothing that I am to repeat again," said Roland Graeme, shaking his
head.
"Why, hey-day," said Adam, "how prudent we are become all of a sudden!
You have advanced rarely in brief space, Master Roland. You have well
nigh had your head broken, and you have gained your gold chain, and
you have made an enemy, Master Usher to wit, with his two legs like
hawks' perches, and you have had audience of the first man in the
realm, and bear as much mystery in your brow, as if you had flown in
the court-sky ever since you were hatched. I believe, in my soul, you
would run with a piece of the egg-shell on your head like the curlews,
which (I would we were after them again) we used to call whaups in the
Halidome and its neighbourhood. But sit thee down, boy; Adam Woodcock
was never the lad to seek to enter into forbidden secrets--sit thee
down, and I will go and fetch the vivers--I know the butler and the
pantler of old."
The good-natured falconer set forth upon his errand, busying himself
about procuring their refreshment; and, during his absence, Roland
Graeme abandoned himself to the strange, complicated, and yet
heart-stirring reflections, to which the events of the morning had
given rise.
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