“Come at last, eh! and time, too,” exclaimed the young knight, as he listlessly held out his hand for his potion of sack.  “What, not brought it yet?” he added, as he saw the other’s empty hands; “I have been kept waiting for it more than a quarter of an hour.”

“Will you have it cool or spiced, my lord?” meekly asked Edmund, following up the idea thus thrown out.  “I have but just received the order for it.”

“Spiced, indeed!” replied the knight contemptuously; “not I, let me have it fresh from the cellar, and that quickly.  No, here, stay,” he added by the way of afterthought, “where is Sir George?”

“Sir George!  Is that the oldish gentleman with the master?”

“That is Sir George Vernon, yes.”

“He is lying down in the parlour,” was the ready reply.

“Humph, that’s queer, poring over that confounded document again, I’ll warrant me.  I will go back with you,” returned Sir Thomas.

“I will bring it to you in half a minute,” gasped Edmund.

“Nay,” returned the other, “I will accompany thee.  Ha! here he is, coming up again.  He’s crossing the yard now, and Sir Nicholas Bacon is with him, I perceive.”

Edmund had played his last card, and the game was lost.  Fortune had forsaken him at every turn; not one of his efforts had met with any success, and after all his endeavours he found himself as securely caught as the rat which was even then writhing within a few inches of his feet, in its last vain endeavour to free itself from the trap in which it was held.

For a moment or two he stood irresolute, but then, quickly gaining a mastery over the feeling of despair which had at first stolen over him, he made for the ladder, only to find, as he put his foot on the topmost step, that Sir George had set his foot upon the one at the bottom.

There was no help for it.  He could neither advance nor retreat, so he stood at the top, carefully selecting the darker side, to await the course of events which could bring him no good fortune, but only evil in a greater or lesser degree.  The completeness of his disguise, which had so completely deceived Sir Thomas, encouraged him to hope, for the moment, that he might also pass unrecognised even before the eagle eyes of the King of the Peak, and he solaced himself by trusting that if he were discovered the landlord might dismiss him in as summary a manner as he had done the ostler before him.

As Sir George passed him by, deep in conversation with Sir Nicholas Bacon, Edmund’s hopes were considerably augmented, but the same ill-luck which had followed him heretofore did not desert him now.  His hopes were dashed as soon as they had arisen, for the eye of the worthy Boniface was fixed upon him ere that person had fully entered the room.

Had he been attired in a manner more befitting his station, Edmund would undoubtedly have received a more befitting reception; but clothed as he was in shabby knee-breeches, loosely tied at the knees, a coat which was out at the elbows, a hat minus a portion of its brim, and with a dilapidated ruffle round his neck, which had been in its prime years ago, he presented a striking similarity in appearance to the ordinary marauding beggar of the period, such as were then so exceedingly common, and for one of whom, indeed, the landlord took him to be.