The dirage was concluded, and vespers for the dead were now commencing with the “Placebo Domino.”  The priest with his loud rich voice sang or recited the anthem, and the attendants gave the response in a low and muttering sound.  Just as he was beginning the fumigation with a sign of the cross, to drive away demons and unclean spirits from the body, suddenly a loud, deep, and startling blast was heard from the horn at the outer gate.  The whole assembly started up from their devotions, and every eye was turned towards the dean, as though to watch and take the colour of their proceedings from those of his reverence.  He lifted his eyes from the corpse, which lay with the face and shoulders uncovered; and, as if startled from some bewildering reverie, cried aloud—­

“What untimely visitor art thou, disturbing the sad offices of the dead?”

He paused, as though the sound of his own voice had disturbed him; while wrapping himself in his cloak, he hastily approached Oliver, who stood irresolute, not knowing how to act in this unexpected emergency.  De Whalley pointed towards the door, and the seneschal prepared to obey, accompanied by the porter with a light, and one or two attendants.

Immediately outside the chapel the way led down a steep angle of the rock, which Oliver, by dint of much use and experience, descended without any apparent difficulty, save what arose from the slippery state of the path, which rendered the footing more than usually precarious and uncertain.

Again, the blast brayed forth a louder and more impatient summons, startling the echoes from their midnight slumber, while the deep woods answered from a thousand unseen recesses.

“Hang thee for a saucy loon, whoever thou be!  I’ll warrant thee as much impudence in thy face as wind i’ thy muzzle,” said the disturbed seneschal.  “Tarry a while, Hugo; ope not the gate without a parley, despite the knave’s untimely summons.”

Oliver, hobbling onward, reached the wicket, just then occupied by Hugo’s broad and curious face prying out cautiously into the misty and unintelligible void, without being a whit the wiser for his scrutiny.

“What a plague do ye keep honest men a-waiting for at the gate,” said a gruff voice from the pitchy darkness without, “in a night that would make a soul wish for a dip into purgatory, just by way of a warming?”

“Hush,” said Oliver, who was a true son of the Church, and moreover, being fresh from the services appointed for the recovery of poor souls from this untoward place, felt the remark of the stranger as peculiarly impious and full of blasphemy—­“Hush! thou bold-faced scorner, and learn to furbish thy wit from some other armoury; we like not such unholy jests—­firebrands thrown in sport!  Thy business, friend?”

“Open the gate, good master priest-poke,” said the other, in a tone of authority.

“Not until thou showest thine errand,” said the equally imperative interrogator within; who, having the unequivocal and somewhat ponderous advantage of a pair of stout-built and well-furnished gates to back, or rather face, him in the controversy, was consequently in a fair way for keeping on the strong side of the argument.