‘What can the rascal mean?’ said the earl to himself; but he told the man to carry the fool’s message exactly as he had received it, and quietly followed Tom and his companions, some of whom, conceiving fresh importance from the overstrained politeness with which they had been received, were now attempting a transformation of their usual loundering gait into a martial stride, with the result of a foolish strut, very unlike the dignified progress of the sham earl, whose weak back roused in them no suspicion, and who had taken care they should not see his face.  Across the paved court, and through the hall to the inner court, Tom led them, and the earl followed.

The twilight was falling.  The hall was empty of life, and filled with a sombre dusk, echoing to every step as they passed through it.  They did not see the flash of eyes and glimmer of smiles from the minstrel’s gallery, and the solitude, size, and gloom had, even on their dull natures, a palpable influence.  The whole castle seemed deserted as they followed the false earl across the second court—­with the true one stealing after them like a knave—­little imagining that bright eyes were watching them from the curtains of every window like stars from the clear spaces and cloudy edges of heaven.  To the north-west corner of the court he led them, and through a sculptured doorway up the straight wide ascent of stone called the grand staircase.  At the top he turned to the right, along a dim corridor, from which he entered a suite of bedrooms and dressing-rooms, over whose black floors he led the trampling hob-nailed shoes without pity either for their polish or the labour of the housemaids in restoring it.

In this way he reached the stair in the bell-tower, ascending which he brought them into a narrow dark passage ending again in a downward stair, at the foot of which they found themselves in the long picture-gallery, having entered it in the recess of one of its large windows.  At the other end of the gallery he crossed into the dining-room, then through an ante-chamber entered the drawing-room, where the ladies, apprised of their approach, kept still behind curtains and high chairs, until they had passed through, on their way to cross the archway of the main entrance, and through the library gain the region of household economy and cookery.  Thither I will not drag my reader after them.  Indeed the earl, who had been dogging them like a Fate, ever emerging on their track but never beheld, had already began to pay his part of the penalty of the joke in fatigue, for he was not only unwieldy in person, but far from robust, being very subject to gout.  He owed his good spirits to a noble nature, and not to animal well-being.  When they crossed from the picture-gallery to the dining-room, he went down the stair between, and into the oak-parlour adjoining the great hall.  There he threw himself into an easy chair which always stood for him in the great bay window, looking over the moat to the huge keep of the castle, and commanding through its western light the stone bridge which crossed it.  There he lay back at his ease, and, instructed by the message Tom had committed to the serjeant of the guard, waited the result.