“Nevertheless, I shall attempt it, good Roger; dissuade me not.”

“Faith, not I.  ’Tis not for such as me to interfere.  Thou art brave, Master Manners, and art worthy of success; may it come to thee, say I. But the Hall is full big to seek each other in; where shalt thou be?”

“In the dining-room.”

“In the dining-room!” quoth Roger, in surprise.  “The dining-room!  Thou’lt surely never look there?  ’Tis as bare of hiding places as the flat of my hand.  Why not in the archer’s room, or the tower?”

“I shall hide me behind the arras till she comes,” replied Manners.

“The arras,” laughed his companion, “why it will bulge out like the monuments in Bakewell Church; the first who comes will spy thee out.  Take my advice, master, and wait in the tower.  Why, the buttery were safer than the dining-room.”

“Tut, I shall go,” he replied; “there is more to hide one than you wot of, but my Dorothy knows it, and I shall meet her there;” and picking up a bundle of wood he started off to the Hall.

He was not long upon the way, and when he arrived at his destination there was no difficulty in getting into the kitchens, for he had been there scores of times before, and his was quite a familiar figure now.

“Ho, Hubert,” called one of the busy cooks as he entered the room, “lend a hand with this steer; thou hast the strength of a bullock, I verily believe.”

Manners dropped the wood and good-naturedly lent the desired assistance.

“An thou would’st chop it with this cleaver thou wert a good fellow,” continued the cook, as, having got the beast upon the bench, he surveyed its goodly proportions, and handed the cleaver to his newly-found helpmate.

“Nay, I am no butcher, I am but a woodsman, and should cut it wrong, I fear,” returned Manners, as he laid the chopper down.  “Were it a tree—­”

“Now, come,” interrupted the cook, persuasively.  “I am wearied out; I have no strength left in my arm.  See you, here, here, and here, and the thing is done.”

“I will do it an you will serve me a good turn, too?” he replied.

“Done, then,” said the other; “what is it?”

“Show me the Hall; I have long wished to see the ballroom.  ’Tis a fine room, Roger says.”

“Fine!” exclaimed the cook.  “I should think it is fine.  There’s not another in all Queen Elizabeth’s land to equal it.  I will show it thee afterwards.”

“Help me with this sack of flour,” exclaimed the baker, “and I will show it thee now.”

Manners chopped the carcase up, for which he was promised a share of the pie, and quickly satisfied the baker.  His strength, indeed, was wonderful, and what two bakers had failed to do together, he easily accomplished alone.

“Thou shalt have a cake to-night,” exclaimed the baker, admiringly.  “A milk-white cake hot off the hearthstone, such as my lord the baron loveth so well,” and they passed through the stone-flagged passage into the banqueting-room beyond to see the wonders of the Hall.