They arrived without molestation at an enclosure about a mile distant from the priory.  Here they alighted, leaving the horses to the care of their attendants.  Turning the angle made by a low wall, they observed a footpath, which the clerk pointed out as the shortest and most convenient course to their destination.  Soon the east end of the priory chapel was visible, basking in the broad light of the harvest moon, then riding up full and unclouded towards her zenith.  Buttress and oriel were weltering in her beam, and the feathery pinnacles sprang out sharp and clear into the blue sky.  The shadows were thrown back in masses deep and unbroken, more huge in proportion to the unknown depths through which the eye could not penetrate.

“There—­again!  ’Tis a footstep on our track!” said the clerk, abruptly breaking upon the reverie of his companion.

“’Tis but the tread of the roused deer; man’s bolder footstep falls not so lightly,” was the reply; but this did not quiet the apprehensions of the querist, whose terrors were again stealing upon him.  Their path was up a little glen, down which the mill-stream, now released from its daily toil, brawled happily along, as if rejoicing in its freedom.  Near the mill, on a point of land formed by an abrupt bend of the stream, stood the storehouse or grange.  It was an ample structure, serving at times for purposes not immediately connected with its original design.  A small chamber was devoted to the poorer sort of travellers, who craved a night’s lodging on their journey.  Beneath was a place of confinement, for the refractory vassals and serfs, when labouring under their master’s displeasure.  It was here the garrulous clerk said he had been scared by the ghost, and his reluctance to proceed evidently increased as he drew nearer.  He did not fail to point out the spot, but resolutely refused to budge a step farther.

“We had best return,” said he; “I have told thee what I know of the matter.”

“And what should scare thee so mightily, friend,” said De Poininges, “from out the prior’s grange?  Methinks, these ghosts of thine had a provident eye to their bellies.  These haunters to the granary had less objection to the victuals than to a snuff of the wind before cock-crow.”

“I know not,” replied Amen, rather doggedly; “’tis all I heard, though there be more that live hereabout than the prior and his monks, I trow.”

“Thou hast been here ofttimes o’ nights?” carelessly inquired the other.

“I have, upon some chance occasion it may be; but since that ugly noise got wind, to which my own ears bear testimony, I was not over-curious to pass within hearing, though it were only the rogues, some said, that were mulcting the flour-sacks.”

“But thou knowest there was a hint dropped a while ago at the hostel, that the maiden, whom thou hast now forgotten, methinks, had some connection with this marvellous tale of thine; and now, it seems, I am to believe ’tis but the knaves or the rats purloining the prior’s corn!  Hark thee, friend,” said De Poininges, in a stern tone, “no more evasion:  no turn or equivocation shall serve thee:  out with it, and lead on, or”—­