Oliver Tempest led the way with great care and formality.  To a keen-eyed observer, though, his courtesy would have appeared over acted and fulsome; but the object of his assiduities seemed to pay him little attention, further than by a vacant smile that struggled around the corners of his melancholy and placid mouth.

Dame Joan Tempest now came forth, bending thrice in a deep and formal acknowledgment.  The stranger stayed her speech with a look of great benignity.

“I know thy words are what our kindness would interpret, and I thank thee.  Your hospitality shall not lose its savour in my remembrance, when England hath grown weary of her guilt,—­when the cry of the widow and the fatherless shall have prevailed.  I am hunted like a partridge on the mountains; but, by the help of my God, I shall yet escape from the noisome pit, and from the snares of the fowler.”

Yet the look which accompanied this prediction seemed incredulous of its purport.  He heaved a deep sigh, and his eyes were suddenly bent on the ground.  Being introduced into the hall, the seat of honour was assigned him at the table.

Elizabeth, when she saw him, uttered an ill-suppressed exclamation of surprise, and her pale countenance grew almost ghastly.  Her lips were bloodless, quivering with terror and dismay.  Agony was depicted on her brow—­that agony which leaves the spirit without support to struggle with unknown, undefined, uncomprehended evil.  Not a word escaped her; she hurried out of the hall, as she thought, without observation; but this sudden movement did not escape the eye of her father.  Triumph sat on his brow; and his cheek seemed flushed with joy at the result of his stratagem.

The servitors appeared; and the smoking victuals were disposed in their due order.  The joints were placed at the upper end of the board, while broth and pottage steamed out their savoury fumes from the lower end of the table.  At some distance below the master and his dame sat the male domestics, then the females, who occupied the lower places at the feast, except two, who waited on the rest.

The master blessed the meal, the whole company standing.  The broth was served round to the lower forms, and the meat and dainties to the higher; but Elizabeth was still absent.

When she left the hall it was for the purpose of speaking to Gregory, whom she found skulking and peeping about the premises.

“Gregory, why art thou absent from thy nooning?” inquired Elizabeth, with a suspicious and scrutinising glance.

“I’m not o’er careful to bide i’ the house just now.  Is there aught come that—­that”—­Here he stammered and looked round, confirming the suspicions of the inquirer.

“Gregory, thou art a traitor; but thou shalt not escape thy reward.  I’ll have thee hung—­ay, villain, beyond the reach of aught but crows and kites.”

“Whoy, mistress, I’d leifer be hung nor stifled to death wi’ brimstone and bad humours.”