We must part presently, as I found, at least for a little while.  There was no question but that Owen would stay at the court here, and so Gerent had ready for me a letter which I should carry back to Ina at once.  He spoke very kindly to me at that time, giving me a great golden bracelet from his own arm, that I might remember to come back to bide for a time with him ere long.  And then we broke our fast, and my men were ready, and I parted from my foster father in the bright morning light that made the white walls of the old palace seem more wonderful to me than ever.

“Farewell, then, for a while,” he said to me; “come back as soon as Ina will spare you.  There will be peace between him and Gerent now, as I think.”

Then came a man in haste from out of the gateway where we stood yet, and he bore a last gift from Gerent to me.  It was a beautiful wide-winged falcon from the cliffs of Tintagel in the far west, hooded and with the golden jesses that a king’s bird may wear on her talons.

“It is the word of the king,” said the falconer, “that a thane should ride with hawk on wrist if he bears a peaceful message.  Moreover, there will be full time on the homeward way for a flight or two.  Well trained she is, Master, and there is no better passage hawk between here and Land’s End.”

That was a gift such as any man might be proud of, and I asked Owen to thank the king for me.  And so we parted with little sorrow after all, for it was quite likely that I should be back here in a day or two for yet a little while longer with him.

So I and my men were blithe as we rode in the still frosty air across the Quantocks by the way we had come, and by and by, when we gained the wilder crests, I began to look about me for some chance of proving the good hawk that sat waiting my will on my wrist.

Soon I saw that the rattle and noise of men and horses spoiled a good chance or two for me, for the black game fled to cover, and once a roe sprang from its resting in the bushes by the side of the track and was gone before I could unhood the bird.

“Ho, Wulf!” I cried to one of the men who was wont to act as forester when Ina hunted, “let us ride aside for a space, and then we will see what sort of training a Welshman can give a hawk.”

So we put spurs to our horses and went on until they were a mile behind us, and then we were on a ridge of hill whence a long wooded combe sank northward to the dense forest land at the foot of the hills, and there we rode slowly, questing for what might give us a fair flight.  Bustard there were on these hills, and herons also, for below me I could see the bare branches of the tree tops on which the broad-winged birds light at nesting time, twigless and skeleton-like.  For a while we saw nothing, however, and so rode wide of the track, across the heather, until we found the woodland before us, and had to make our way back to the road, which passed through it.  But before we came in sight of the road, from almost under my feet, a hare bolted from a clump of long grass, and made for the coverts.  I cast off the hawk and shouted, but we were too near the underwood, and it seemed that the hare would win to cover in time to save herself.