“Something, as it might be, like unto a woman, crossed our path twice, and within a stone’s throw.  O Master Geoffery, we be dead men!”

Another groan here interrupted their discourse.  Master Hardpiece muttered some unintelligible prayers, putting on a face of great solemnity.  Several minutes elapsed, while the following exclamations rapidly succeeded each other:—­

“A ghost!—­save us!—­a very ghost!  I’ll not to Slaidburn again without help.  Another draught, Anthony; a stiffener to thy courage, mayhap.  It’s now daylight, though,” said he, looking through the casement, “and most of us fear only what may be felt, in the day-time at any rate.”

Anthony took the cup, and, apparently without being aware, drank off the contents.  He was much invigorated by the draught which seemed to invest him with new courage; partly from the recollection that a long daylight would intervene between the beginning and the end of his journey, and partly because of the sudden rush of spirits to his brain.  He arose, and assuming a posture more erect, planted his cap in a becoming attitude, whilst Geoffery was putting aside the empty vessels into a sort of large wooden chalice, for the purpose of a more convenient removal.

Light footsteps were now heard bounding along the passage, and the door was suddenly burst open by two rosy-cheeked children; the elder a boy of some four or five years’ growth, and his sister scarcely a twelvemonth younger.

“Master Geoffery, Master Geoffery,” lisped one laughing urchin, “hide me; there is Alice—­she’ll not let me go.  We are to ride on two great horses; and I shall have a sword, and sister Julia a coach.”

Here nurse Alice made her appearance.  She had been weeping:  tears and entreaties were vain.  She asked permission to accompany them; but with a frown Hildebrand Wentworth had chidden her from his presence.  Since the loss of her mother, and almost from the time that news had arrived of their father’s death, which happened a little while before the birth of Julia, she had borne a mother’s part to her little charge; and had it been allowed her, she would gladly have served them without reward.

Fearful of leaving them, she had followed hastily into the room.  With a searching glance she eyed the stranger for a while; then suddenly turning to the children, she addressed them with great seriousness and affection.

“Harry, you have not repeated your prayer this morning.  Do you think God will take care of you to-day, if you ask Him not?”

Here the rebuked boy grew silent; and with a suffused face, ran to his nurse.  Whilst in her lap, he poured out his morning orison.  It was a simple but affecting request.  Julia knelt also; and Alice, laying a hand on each, blessed the children.

“God of their fathers, I commit them to Thy care!”

She could say no more; loud sobs checked her utterance; but leaning over these little ones, she convulsively clasped them in her embrace.