“Hold!” he exclaimed; “where am I?—­what is this?  Let me see, or, rather, let me feel where I am, for that is the more appropriate expression, considering that I am in utter obscurity.  What is this, I ask again?  Is my hospitable friend with me? he with whom I partook of that delicious liquor under ’the greenwood-tree’?”

He then searched about, and in doing so his hands came necessarily in contact with the bulky person of the baronet.  “What!” he proceeded, supposing still that it was Gillespie, “is this you, my friend?—­but I take that fact for granted.  Sir, you are a gentleman, and know how to address a gentleman with proper respect; but how is this, you have on your hat?  Sir, you forget yourself—­uncover, and remember you are in my presence.”

As he uttered the words, he seized the baronet’s hat, tore it forcibly off, and, in doing so, accidentally removed a mask which that worthy gentleman had taken the precaution to assume, in order to prevent himself from being recognized.

“Ha!” exclaimed Fenton, with something like a shriek—­“a mask!  Oh, my God!  This mysterious enemy is upon me!  I am once more caught in his toils!  What have I done to deserve this persecution?  I am innocent of all offence—­all guilt.  My life has been one of horror and of suffering indescribable, but not of crime; and although they say I am insane, I know there is a God above who will render me justice, and my oppressor justice, and who knows that I have given offence to none.

     There is a bird that sings alone—­heigh ho! 
     And every note is but a tone of woe. 
     Heigh ho!”

The baronet grasped his wrist tightly with one hand—­and both feeble and attenuated was that poor wrist—­the baronet, we say, grasped it, and in an instant had regained possession of the mask, which he deliberately replaced on his face, after which he seized the unfortunate young man by the neck, and pressed it with such force as almost to occasion suffocation.  Still he (Sir Thomas) uttered not a syllable, a circumstance which in the terrified mind of his unhappy victim caused his position as well as that of his companion to assume a darker, and consequently a more terrible mystery.

“Ah!” he exclaimed, in a low and trembling voice, “I know you now.  You are the stranger who came to stop in the ‘Mitre.’  Yes, you came down to stop in the ‘Mitre.’  I know you by your strong grasp.  I care not, however, for your attempt to strangle me.  I forgive you—­I pardon you; and I will tell you why—­treat me as violently as you may—­I feel that there is goodness in your face, and mercy in your heart.  But I did see a face, one day, in the inn,” he added, in a voice that gradually became quite frantic—­“a face that was dark, damnable, and demoniac—­oh, oh! may God of heaven ever preserve me from seeing that face again!” he exclaimed, shuddering wildly.  “Open me up the shrouded graves, my friend; I will call you so notwithstanding what has happened,