when it is brought down, without using the newfangled jargon of
'curee, arbor, nombles', and all the babble of the fabulous Sir
Tristrem."*

* There was no language which the Normans more formally
* separated from that of common life than the terms of the
* chase. The objects of their pursuit, whether bird or
* animal, changed their name each year, and there were a
* hundred conventional terms, to be ignorant of which was to
* be without one of the distinguishing marks of a gentleman.
* The reader may consult Dame Juliana Berners' book on the
* subject. The origin of this science was imputed to the
* celebrated Sir Tristrem, famous for his tragic intrigue
* with the beautiful Ysolte. As the Normans reserved the
* amusement of hunting strictly to themselves, the terms of
* this formal jargon were all taken from the French language.

"The French," said the Templar, raising his voice with the
presumptuous and authoritative tone which he used upon all
occasions, "is not only the natural language of the chase, but
that of love and of war, in which ladies should be won and
enemies defied."

"Pledge me in a cup of wine, Sir Templar," said Cedric, "and fill
another to the Abbot, while I look back some thirty years to tell
you another tale. As Cedric the Saxon then was, his plain
English tale needed no garnish from French troubadours, when it
was told in the ear of beauty; and the field of Northallerton,
upon the day of the Holy Standard, could tell whether the Saxon
war-cry was not heard as far within the ranks of the Scottish