It was on the grass before this seductive and picturesque structure that the sailor stood at gaze under the elms in the dim dawn of Sunday morning, and saw to his surprise his sister’s lover and horse vanish within the court of the building.

Perplexed and weary, Roger slowly retreated, more than ever convinced that something was wrong in his sister’s position.  He crossed the bowling green to the avenue of elms, and, bent on further research, was about to climb into one of these, when, looking below, he saw a heap of hay apparently for horses or deer.  Into this he crept, and, having eaten a crust of bread which he had hastily thrust into his pocket at the inn, he curled up and fell asleep, the hay forming a comfortable bed, and quite covering him over.

He slept soundly and long, and was awakened by the sound of a bell.  On peering from the hay he found the time had advanced to full day; the sun was shining brightly.  The bell was that of the ‘faire chappell’ on the green outside the gatehouse, and it was calling to matins.  Presently the priest crossed the green to a little side-door in the chancel, and then from the gateway of the mansion emerged the household, the tall man whom Roger had seen with his sister on the previous night, on his arm being a portly dame, and, running beside the pair, two little girls and a boy.  These all entered the chapel, and the bell having ceased and the environs become clear, the sailor crept out from his hiding.

He sauntered towards the chapel, the opening words of the service being audible within.  While standing by the porch he saw a belated servitor approaching from the kitchen-court to attend the service also.  Roger carelessly accosted him, and asked, as an idle wanderer, the name of the family he had just seen cross over from the mansion.

’Od zounds! if ye modden be a stranger here in very truth, goodman.  That wer Sir John and his dame, and his children Elizabeth, Mary, and John.’

‘I be from foreign parts.  Sir John what d’ye call’n?’

’Master John Horseleigh, Knight, who had a’most as much lond by inheritance of his mother as ’a had by his father, and likewise some by his wife.  Why, bain’t his arms dree goolden horses’ heads, and idden his lady the daughter of Master Richard Phelipson, of Montislope, in Nether Wessex, known to us all?’

‘It mid be so, and yet it mid not.  However, th’ ’lt miss thy prayers for such an honest knight’s welfare, and I have to traipse seaward many miles.’

He went onward, and as he walked continued saying to himself, ’Now to that poor wronged fool Edy.  The fond thing!  I thought it; ’twas too quick—­she was ever amorous.  What’s to become of her!  God wot!  How be I going to face her with the news, and how be I to hold it from her?  To bring this disgrace on my father’s honoured name, a double-tongued knave!’ He turned and shook his fist at the chapel and all in it, and resumed his way.