“But it is chance if he knows you,” said the huntsman, “for he has forgotten the name of every hound in the pack.  I thought, about a week since, he had gotten a favourable turn.  ‘Saddle me old Sorrel,’ said he suddenly, after he had taken his usual night-draught out of the great silver grace-cup, ‘and take the hounds to Mount Hazelhurst to-morrow.’  Glad men were we all, and out we had him in the morning, and he rode to cover as usual, with never a word spoken but that the wind was south, and the scent would lie.  But ere we had uncoupled’the hounds, he began to stare round him, like a man that wakes suddenly out of a dream—­turns bridle, and walks back to Hall again, and leaves us to hunt at leisure by ourselves, if we listed.”

“You tell a heavy tale, Will,” replied Tressilian; “but God must help us—­there is no aid in man.”

“Then you bring us no news of young Mistress Amy?  But what need I ask—­your brow tells the story.  Ever I hoped that if any man could or would track her, it must be you.  All’s over and lost now.  But if ever I have that Varney within reach of a flight-shot, I will bestow a forked shaft on him; and that I swear by salt and bread.”

As he spoke, the door opened, and Master Mumblazen appeared—­a withered, thin, elderly gentleman, with a cheek like a winter apple, and his grey hair partly concealed by a small, high hat, shaped like a cone, or rather like such a strawberry-basket as London fruiterers exhibit at their windows.  He was too sententious a person to waste words on mere salutation; so, having welcomed Tressilian with a nod and a shake of the hand, he beckoned him to follow to Sir Hugh’s great chamber, which the good knight usually inhabited.  Will Badger followed, unasked, anxious to see whether his master would be relieved from his state of apathy by the arrival of Tressilian.

In a long, low parlour, amply furnished with implements of the chase, and with silvan trophies, by a massive stone chimney, over which hung a sword and suit of armour somewhat obscured by neglect, sat Sir Hugh Robsart of Lidcote, a man of large size, which had been only kept within moderate compass by the constant use of violent exercise, It seemed to Tressilian that the lethargy, under which his old friend appeared to labour, had, even during his few weeks’ absence, added bulk to his person—­at least it had obviously diminished the vivacity of his eye, which, as they entered, first followed Master Mumblazen slowly to a large oaken desk, on which a ponderous volume lay open, and then rested, as if in uncertainty, on the stranger who had entered along with him.  The curate, a grey-headed clergyman, who had been a confessor in the days of Queen Mary, sat with a book in his hand in another recess in the apartment.  He, too, signed a mournful greeting to Tressilian, and laid his book aside, to watch the effect his appearance should produce on the afflicted old man.

As Tressilian, his own eyes filling fast with tears, approached more and more nearly to the father of his betrothed bride, Sir Hugh’s intelligence seemed to revive.  He sighed heavily, as one who awakens from a state of stupor; a slight convulsion passed over his features; he opened his arms without speaking a word, and, as Tressilian threw himself into them, he folded him to his bosom.