Seating himself in the family pew, he pulled out a book from his capacious breast-pocket, and as he anticipated a long period of uninterrupted peace, he commenced to peruse it.  It was “Tottel’s Miscellany,” a collection of amorous sonnets, and little love sonnets and little love songs, and he read page after page, to the delight of his heart, until he was startled to a sense of his position by the sound of voices just outside.

“No, no, Sir Edward.  We must give her a little longer time, she will come round soon to our opinion,” were the words he unmistakably heard.

“But you promised her to me this Christmas, remember,” was the quick reply.

“Aye, so I did,” returned the first speaker.  “I would that I had not promised her at all, she is so unhappy over it.”

“And I have laid my plans according to that promise,” rejoined his companion.

“We must allow her a little longer time,” replied the baron, decisively.  “Manners has been again to flame her passion for him anew.  She will be ready to accept thee soon, but not just yet.”

“I tell her John Manners has forsaken her, but she will persist in her waywardness, and I expect, forsooth, she will do so until—­”

“Tut, tut, man,” interposed Sir George, “it shall not be at Christmas, as we would have had it; but even as she comes not to her senses soon, you shall take her away.  Say another month, Sir Edward, another month.  There, that is settled, trouble me no more, and now we will off to mass.”

They were in the garden, and through the open lattice window Manners could hear them without the slightest trouble.  At the mention of mass he abruptly closed his book, and replacing it in his pocket, he crept carefully into the dismal hollow under the pulpit, and pulling the panel to after him he hid himself securely in the dark recess.

“So ho!” he murmured, as he fixed himself in his retreat; “the baron is good.  Another month and then, oh! and then?”

He stopped and relapsed into thought.  His brow contracted, his lips were tightly pressed, and his eyes stared fixedly through the darkness of his retreat at the chinks of the panels in front, through which he could see the place where his beloved would shortly sit.

“Aye, aye,” he muttered, as he fiercely clapped his hand upon his thigh.  “It cannot be the worse for her, nor yet much worse for me.  She must do it; I will broach it to her now.  Here they come.”

The pulpit was none too strong, and as Nicholas ascended the stair and shut the door, it distinctly shook and tottered to and fro over the esquire.

“Why, by my halidame,” thought Manners, “the whole contrivance will fall down together and crush me.”

This fear was strengthened soon, for as the priest fixed himself conveniently in his elevated position, the floor above the esquire’s head creaked and groaned and threatened every minute to fall.