Swift as the words he uttered the hermit disappeared!  The effect was so sudden, aided, in all likelihood, by the dimness and obscurity of the cell, that, to the astonished apprehension of De Whalley, Ulphilas had made himself more impalpable than the air he breathed, sinking like a shadow through the rocky floor.

“Thou hast escaped me, fiend,” said the dean, gnashing his teeth with vexation; “but I will overmatch thy spells:  with the aid of this good hand I may yet retrieve the inheritance.”

Saying this, he left the cell, and returned to his home at Whalley.

Early on the morrow the hermit entered the hall where Adam de Dutton was preparing for another expedition to the forest.  The seneschal looked uneasy and surprised, but acknowledged his presence with great respect and humility.

“Adam de Dutton, thou hast other work to do,” cried the holy man, “than rambling after these fools i’ the forest!  Thy lord will be here anon.”

“How! whom meanest thou?” inquired the castellan, with a vacant stare of astonishment.

“Roger de Fitz-Eustace.  He is at hand; see thou prepare to meet him.”

“Surely thou mockest, Roger de”—­

“Peace!  The last beam of to-morrow’s sun shall see the banner of the Fitz-Eustace beneath the gate.”

“To-morrow!  Why—­how cometh my lord?  Surely thou dreamest—­or thy”—­

“Once more I warn thee of his coming; see to his reception, or thy lord will be wroth; and Roger with the ready hand was not used to be over-nice, or loth in the administering of a rod to a fool’s back.”

The hermit departed without awaiting the reply.

But great was the stir and tumult in the stronghold of the Lacies on that memorable day.  The hurrying to and fro of the victuallers and cooks—­the clink of armourers and the din of horses prancing in their warlike equipments—­kept up an incessant jingle and confusion.  A watchman was stationed on the keep, whose duty it was to give warning when the dust, curling on the wind, should betoken the approach of strangers.  The guards were set, the gates properly mounted, and the drawbridge raised, so that their future lord might be admitted in due form to his possession.

The sun went gloriously down towards the wide and distant verge of the forest, and the brow of Pendle flung back his burning glance.  Nature seemed to welter in a wide atmosphere of light, from which there was no escape.  Panting and oppressed, the hounds lay basking by the wall, and the shaggy wolf-dog crept, with slouching gait and lolling tongue, from the glare into the shadow of some protecting buttress.  The watchman sat beneath the low battlements, hardly able to direct his aching eyes towards the forest path below the hill.  The monotony of this dull and weary task was reiterated until the very effort became habitual, and he could scarcely recognise or identify any change of object from the absorption