The wants of the Irish hobby having been thoroughly attended to, and the game little fellow having recovered in some measure his natural gaiety of spirits, the squire ushered the stranger into a long low hall, hung with pikes and guns and bows, and relics of the chase as well as of the wars.  The stone floor was strewed with clean rushes, and lying about on tables were trashes, collars, and whips for hounds, as well as hoods, perches, jesses, and bells for hawks; whilst a variety of odds and ends, such as crossbows and jumping-poles, were scattered about the apartment.  An enormous wood fire blazed at one end of the hall, and in the inglenook sat a girl of some twenty summers.

“My daughter, sir,” exclaimed the squire; “as good a girl as ever lived to make a cheese, brew good beer, preserve all sorts of wines, and cook a capon with a chaudron!  Marry!  I forgot to ask thee thy name?”

“Oh, my name is Shakespeare—­William Shakespeare, sir.  I come from Stratford-on-the-Avon, up to’rds Warwick.”

“Shakespy, Shakespy; a’ don’t know that name.  Dost bear arms, sir?”

“I am entitled to them—­a spear on a bend sable, and a falcon for my crest; but we have not yet applied to the heralds for the confirmation.  And you, sir?”

“He writes himself armigero in any bill, warrant, quittance, or obligation,” here put in Davy the serving man.

“Ah, that I do! and have done any time these three hundred years.”

“All his successors gone before him hath done it; and all his ancestors that come after him may,” added Davy, with pride.

“To be sure, to be sure,” said the squire.  “Well, welcome to Cotswold, Master Shakespeare; good sportsmen are ever welcome on Cotswold.  But tell me, how didst thou get thy downfall?”

“The first was at the mound into the tyning by Master Blackett’s house at Iccomb; old Dobbin breasted it, and the stones did rattle round mine ears like a house a-coming down.  We made a shard[16] that let the rest of ’em through.  It was the only wall that came in the way of the chase to-day.  The second downfall was at the brook by Bourton-Windrush, I think they call it.  Dobbin being a bit short of wind, and quilting sadly, stuck fast in the mire, and tumbled on to his nose in scrambling out.  Marry, sir, but ’twas a famous chase; the like of it I never saw before.  ’Twas grand at first to see the hart unharboured—­a stag with all his rights, ‘brow, bay, and trey.’”

[Footnote 16:  A Cotswold word = breach.]

“Thou shouldst know, our hounds at Warwick are a noted pack,

     So flew’d, so sanded, and their beads are hung
     With ears that sweep away the morning dew;
     Crook-knee’d, and dew-lapp’d like Thessalian bulls;
     Slow in pursuit, but matched in mouth like bells,
     Each under each.  A cry more tuneable
     Was never holla’d to, nor cheer’d with horn.’” [17]

[Footnote 17:  Midsummer Night’s Dream, IV. i.]