hard, and said he couldn't play -- a plausible excuse,
but too thin; there wasn't a musician in the country
that could.

The queen was a good deal outraged, next morning
when she found she was going to have neither Hugo's
life nor his property. But I told her she must bear
this cross; that while by law and custom she certainly
was entitled to both the man's life and his property,
there were extenuating circumstances, and so in Arthur
the king's name I had pardoned him. The deer was
ravaging the man's fields, and he had killed it in sud-
den passion, and not for gain; and he had carried it
into the royal forest in the hope that that might make
detection of the misdoer impossible. Confound her, I