“I tell thee, if Sir Osmund catch thee carrying so much as a thumb-nail of Sir William’s carcase, he ’ll wring thy neck as wry as the chapel weathercock.  My lady goes nigh crazed with his ill humours.  I warrant thee, Sir William’s ghost gaily snuffs up the sport.  I have watched him up and down the old stairs, and once i’ the chapel; and he told me”—­whispering close to the pilgrim’s ear—­“a great secret, nuncle!”

“Ay—­what was that, Motley?”

“Why, said he, if so be Sir William comes home again, he’ll find his wife has got a cuckoo in her nest.”  Here he burst from the stranger with a malicious shout, and descending a by-path, was soon lost amidst the intricacies of a deep wood, skirting the verge of an extensive forest.

The traveller’s brow gathered a heavier gloom.  With unconscious haste he soon gained a gentle ascent, which led by a narrow and deep path to the mansion.  Nigh to the bridge over the moat stood a blacksmith’s hovel, conveniently situated for all job-work emanating from the armoury and the kitchen, which at that time afforded full exercise for the musical propensities of Darby Grimshaw’s great anvil.  This hut was a general resort to all the idlers in the vicinity; Grim, as he was generally styled for the sake of abbreviation, discharging the office of “preses,” or chief moderator, in all debates held therein.  He was a shrewd fellow and a bold one.  A humorous and inquisitive cunning lurked in the corner of his grey and restless eye.  His curiosity was insatiable; and as a cross-questioner, when fairly at work, for worming out a secret he had not his fellow.  His brain was a general deposit for odd scraps, and a reservoir in which flowed all stray news about the country.  He was an abstract and chronicle of the time; and could tell you where the Earl of Lancaster mustered his forces, the day of their march, and the very purposes and projects of that turbulent noble.  Even the secrets of my lady’s bower did not elude the prying of this indefatigable artist; at any rate, he had the credit of knowing all that he assumed, which amounted very much to the same thing as though his knowledge were unlimited:  a nod and a wink supplying the place of intelligence, when his wondering neophytes grew disagreeably minute in their inquiries.

Towards this abode did the pilgrim bend his steps.  A thick smoke hovered about the thatch, that appeared very ingeniously adapted for the reception and nurture of any stray spark that might happen to find there a temporary lodgment.  Several times had this Vulcan been burnt out, yet the materials were easily replaced; and again and again the hovel arose in all its pristine ugliness and disorder.

Darby was just kindling his fire:  a merry-making overnight had trenched upon morning duties, and daylight found him still stretched on his pallet.  Subsequent to this a noisy troop from the hall had roused him from a profound slumber.