mount us all, as our own beasts will be something weary from the journey
they have taken today. We will be ready ere the sun is up, and if kind
fortune smiles upon us, I trust I shall have the good fortune to have a
pair of fine tusks to offer to my sisters when they join us here, as
they shortly hope to do."

Master Bernard, who was a man of no small importance all through this
neighbourhood, hastened away to give the needful orders. He had come
from his own Rectory hard by to receive the Prince and his comrades, and
he suspected that the King would be well pleased for him to remain
beneath the roof of the castle so long as this gay and youthful party
did so.

When night came and the youths sought the rooms which had been made
ready for them, the Prince signed to a certain number of his comrades to
repair with him to his chamber, as though he desired their services at
his toilet. Amongst those thus summoned were the three sons of Sir John
de Brocas, and also the Gascon twins, for whom young Edward appeared to
have taken a great liking, and who on their part warmly returned this
feeling. Shutting the door carefully, and making sure that none but
friends were round him, the Prince unfolded his plan.

He had learned from the Master Huntsman, whom he had seen for a few
minutes before going to his room, that the boar lay concealed for the
most part in some thick underwood lying in the very heart of the forest
many miles distant, right away to the southwest in the direction of
Woodcrych. This part of the forest was fairly well known to the Prince
from former hunting expeditions, and he and John both remembered well
the hut of a lonely woodman that lay hidden in the very depths of the
wood near this spot. It had occurred to Edward as likely that old Ralph