“In your own words:  go to!” said Emlyn, “and keep your gibes until we have more leisure.”

The old man thought a while, and said—­

“It grows late, but the evening is pleasant, and I think I need some air.  That crack-brained, red-haired fellow of yours will watch you while I am gone, and for mercy’s sake be careful with those candles.  Nay, nay; you must have no fire, you must go cold.  After what you said to me, I can think of naught but fire.  It is for this night only.  By to-morrow evening I’ll prepare a place where Abbot Maldon himself might sit unscorched in the midst of hell.  But till then make out with clothes.  I have some furs in pledge that I will send up to you.  It is your own fault, and in my youth we did not need a fire on an autumn day.  No more, no more,” and he was gone, nor did they see him again that night.

On the following morning, as they sat at their breakfast, Jacob Smith appeared, and began to talk of many things, such as the badness of the weather—­for it rained—­the toughness of the ham, which he said was not to be compared to those they cured at Blossholme in his youth, and the likeness of the baby boy to his mother.

“Indeed, no,” broke in Cicely, who felt that he was playing with them; “he is his father’s self; there is no look of me in him.”

“Oh!” answered Jacob; “well, I’ll give my judgment when I see the father.  By the way, let me read that note again which the cloaked man brought to Emlyn.”

Cicely gave it to him, and he studied it carefully; then said, in an indifferent voice—­

“The other day I saw a list of Christian captives said to have been recovered from the Turks by the Emperor Charles at Tunis, and among them was one ‘Huflit,’ described as an English senor, and his servant.  I wonder now——­”

Cicely sprang upon him.

“Oh! cruel wretch,” she said, “to have known this so long and not to have told me!”

“Peace, Lady,” he said, retreating before her; “I only learned it at eleven of the clock last night, when you were fast asleep.  Yesterday is not this same day, and therefore ’tis the other day, is it not?”

“Surely you might have woke me.  But, swift, where is he now?”

“How can I know?  Not here, at least.  But the writing said——­”

“Well, what did the writing say?”

“I am trying to think—­my memory fails me at times; perhaps you will find the same thing when you have my years, should it please Heaven——­”

“Oh! that it might please Heaven to make you speak!  What said the writing?”

“Ah!  I have it now.  It said, in a note appended amidst other news, for—­did I tell you this was a letter from his Grace’s ambassador in Spain? and, oh! his is the vilest scrawl to read.  Nay, hurry me not—­it said that this ’Sir Huflit’—­the ambassador has put a query against his name—­and his servant—­yes, yes, I am sure it said his servant too—­well, that they both of them, being angry at the treatment they had met with from the infidel Turks—­no, I forgot to add there were three of them, one a priest, who did otherwise.  Well, as I said, being angry, they stopped there to serve with the Spaniards against the Turks till the end of that campaign.  There, that is all.”