The guests in the mean time were assembled and had seated themselves at table.  On Jane’s entrance they all rose, and on being respectively named by their host, bowed with cold and stately courtesy, and sat down again.  The four strangers seemed all of the same ages, fifty or thereabouts—­tall, hale, and dignified in their manners.  Sir Bryan de Barreilles had a patch on his right eye; Hasket of Norland a deep scar on his forehead, that cut his left eyebrow into two parts, and gave a very extraordinary expression to his rigid countenance; Maulerer of Phascald had the general effect of very handsome features, marred by the want of his nose; not that there was actually no nose, but that it did not occupy the prominent position it usually holds on the human face divine, but was inserted deep between the cheeks—­in fact, was a nose not set on after the fashion of a knocker, but a fine specimen of basso-relievo, indented after the manner of Socrates’s head on a seal, and would probably have made a very fine impression.  Dr Howlet was perfectly blind, and from the tone in which he was addressed by the other gentlemen, Jane concluded he was also very nearly deaf.  Besides these, there were present Mr Peeper, at the foot of the table next to Reginald, and on the other side of him a thick square-built man, with a fine hilarious open countenance, who was perhaps of too low a rank to be introduced to the lady of the castle—­no other in fact than the redoubtable Mr Lutter, of whom Jane had heard on her journey home.

After the serving men, with some difficulty, had brought in the supper, consisting of enormous joints of meat, hot and cold, and deposited on the sideboard vast tankards of strong ale and other potent beverages, Mr Peeper rose, and folding his hands across his breast, and bending forward his head with every appearance of devotion, muttered some words evidently intended to represent a grace; but so indistinct that it was utterly impossible to make the slightest guess at their meaning, whereupon they all fell to with prodigious activity, and cut and slashed the enormous dishes as if they had been famished for a year.  Mr Lutter, after making an observation that true thankfulness was as much shown by moderate enjoyment of good gifts as by long prayers said over them, made a most powerful assault on the cold sirloin, and, of all the party, was the only one who had the politeness to send a helping to Jane.  She was tired and hungry, and felt really obliged by the attention, but could scarcely do justice to the viands from surprise at the conversation of the guests.

“Ho, ho!” said Sir Bryan de Barreilles, “I once knew a thing—­such a thing it was too—­ho! ho!” And partly the vividness of the recollection, and principally an enormous mouthful of beef, produced a long fit of coughing—­“’twill make you laugh,” he continued—­“’twas a rare feat—­ho! ho!—­even this lady will be pleased to hear it.”

Jane bowed in expectation of an amusing anecdote.