clerkly lore, so that her folk may have the better of them in France;
and the poor, witless King gives in to her. And so while the
Beauforts rule the roast--"

Salisbury caught her up. "Ay, the roast. Will you partake of these
roast partridges, madam?"

They were brought round skewered on a long spit, held by a page for
the guest to help herself. Whether by her awkwardness or that of the
boy, it so chanced that the bird made a sudden leap from the
impalement, and deposited itself in the lap of Lady Whitburn's
scarlet kirtle! The fact was proclaimed by her loud rude cry, "A
murrain on thee, thou ne'er-do-weel lad," together with a sounding
box on the ear.

"'Tis thine own greed, who dost not--"

"Leonard, be still--know thy manners," cried both at once the Earl
and Sir William, for, unfortunately, the offender was no other than
Leonard Copeland, and, contrary to all the laws of pagedom, he was
too angry not to argue the point. "'Twas no doing of mine! She knew
not how to cut the bird."

Answering again was a far greater fault than the first, and his
father only treated it as his just desert when he was ordered off
under the squire in charge to be soundly scourged, all the more
sharply for his continuing to mutter, "It was her fault."

And sore and furrowed as was his back, he continued to exclaim, when
his friend Edmund of York came to condole with him as usual in all