tory at leisure--beshrew me but such a tale is as well worth
listening to as a romance."

"Ay but, by the rood of Bromeholm, there was no romance in the matter!"
said Athelstane.--"A barley loaf and a pitcher of water--that THEY gave
me, the niggardly traitors, whom my father, and I myself, had enriched,
when their best resources were the flitches of bacon and measures of
corn, out of which they wheedled poor serfs and bondsmen, in exchange
for their prayers--the nest of foul ungrateful vipers--barley bread and
ditch water to such a patron as I had been! I will smoke them out of
their nest, though I be excommunicated!"

"But, in the name of Our Lady, noble Athelstane," said Cedric, grasping
the hand of his friend, "how didst thou escape this imminent danger--did
their hearts relent?"

"Did their hearts relent!" echoed Athelstane.--"Do rocks melt with the
sun? I should have been there still, had not some stir in the Convent,
which I find was their procession hitherward to eat my funeral feast,
when they well knew how and where I had been buried alive, summoned the
swarm out of their hive. I heard them droning out their death-psalms,
little judging they were sung in respect for my soul by those who
were thus famishing my body. They went, however, and I waited long for
food--no wonder--the gouty Sacristan was even too busy with his own
provender to mind mine. At length down he came, with an unstable step
and a strong flavour of wine and spices about his person. Good cheer had
opened his heart, for he left me a nook of pasty and a flask of wine,
instead of my former fare. I ate, drank, and was invigorated; when, to
add to my good luck, the Sacristan, too totty to discharge his duty of
turnkey fitly, locked the door beside the staple, so that it fell ajar.
The light, the food, the wine, set my invention to work. The staple to
which my chains were fixed, was more rusted than I or the villain Abbot
had supposed. Even iron could not remain without consuming in the damps
of that infernal dungeon."

"Take breath, noble Athelstane," said Richard, "and partake of some
refreshment, ere you proceed with a tale so dreadful."

"Partake!" quoth Athelstane; "I have been partaking five times
to-day--and yet a morsel of that savoury ham were not altogether foreign
to the matter; and I pray you, fair sir, to do me reason in a cup of
wine."

The guests, though still agape with astonishment, pledged their
resuscitated landlord, who thu