“Thou hadst the privity and counsel of the deceased, and a whisper would have made it mine,” said the dean, with great dejection.

“Greedy and unblushing as thou art, know it was I who counselled him, and the deed is in my keeping.  I sent a secret message unto Halton with the news, and Roger de Fitz-Eustace will be here anon!”

“Thou dreamest; he is in bondage, or slain at Ascalon.”

“He will reappear,” replied the hermit, “and the banner of the Fitz-Eustace wave on yonder turret.  Hence! ungrateful member of our holy communion;—­to thy house, and let an old man rest in peace.”

The disappointed priest departed in great haste:  terror, of which he could not divest himself, and for which he could not account, overpowered him in the presence of the hermit.  He durst not provoke him further; but as he crossed the courtyard again a glimpse of hope shot suddenly on his soul.

“In thy keeping!” He spoke scarcely above his breath; but the walls seemed to give back the sound.  He started like some guilty thing at the discovery of its crime.

Before morning light on the following day the castle bell began to toll.  Preparations were making for the conveyance of the last of the Ladies to the Abbey of Kirkstall, a journey which would occupy the greater part of two successive days.  The pathway over the hills was narrow, and the mode of conveyance difficult, if not dangerous.  A sort of litter was made for the corpse, and slung on a pole between two horses, covered, as in a bier, with the pall and trappings.  A sword of ceremony was carried in front; the dean rode immediately before the body, the chanters preceding, and a priest with the cross and censer.  Behind came the male domestics, and the seneschal of Halton with his train.

Psalms were sung at every halting-place, and in the villages through which they passed, and torches were kept lighted during the greater part of the journey.  These were for the purpose of being extinguished in the earth that should finally cover the body.

Thus attired, and thus attended, was this once powerful baron conveyed to his narrow dwelling-house in the dust.

We will not follow them further, nor detail the pomp of the funeral rites, that last mockery of greatness, but return to existing objects and events—­man’s ever-gnawing ambition; so vast, when living, that the whole earth is too narrow for its sphere; when dead, the veriest churl hath as wide a possession!

Weeks and months passed away, and the raw February wind grew soft in the warm and joyous impulse of another spring.  One night, about the hour of vespers, two men, habited in monkish apparel, came to the cell of the Hermit of the Rock.  After the usual salutation they entered, carrying with them staff and scrip, as if bent on a long and weary travel.

“Whence come ye, and whither bound?” said the hermit, surveying the intruders by the light of a solitary lamp that was burning in a niche, wherein stood a skull and crucifix, emblems of our faith and our mortality.